


In the Cold Light of Day

by AFiddlingSnail



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Halo (Video Games) & Related Fandoms
Genre: Bipolar Disorder, Breaking Indoctrination, Demons and Abominations are way scarier than in-game, F/F, Found Family, Genderqueer Character, Healing, I mean, Learning to be Human, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self-Discovery, Six has just, They heal together yall, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, i guess its more just kind of everyone helping Six heal, looking at you Hawke, part of my eternal crusade to tell everyone how bad ONI is, so much trauma yall, they deserved better smh
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-18
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:01:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 33,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27622421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AFiddlingSnail/pseuds/AFiddlingSnail
Summary: Only child, orphan, war refugee. Child soldier and personal assassin. Hyper-lethal vector.Dead.Now what? Survivor? That didn't fit, and she refused to be a refugee again. Six ran the whetstone down her knife another time and watched the water slough off the blade in waves.What was a Spartan without orders? Without a suit? Without a target?
Comments: 15
Kudos: 89





	1. Not so Lone Wolf

Red light flashed across her HUD, the line that marked her shield strength entirely empty. She blinked, twisted to dodge a wash of plasma before firing a quick burst to silence it. Another swell of light on her left and she moved without input straight behind -

Three slams of force into her back and a muffled warmth. Ozone and the stench of burning alloy trickled into her nose.

She snapped around. An Ultra was bellowing and charging straight at her. The barrel of her gun swiveled; her finger depressed the trigger and didn’t let go. Ten meters and a torrent of plasma that carved smoking divots into the concrete between them. Five meters, half mag. The hingehead roared and hurled his rifle to the side in favor of the sword at his hip.

Three meters, five rounds, and his shield popped.

She adjusted, flickering reticule landing on the thing’s neck. It was quick though, quick enough to raise a palm and armored wrist over the gap. Lead mulched his palm, but it stopped there.

A roar of triumph and it lunged. The hissing blade passed a scant few inches from her side as she stepped into its strike and wrapped the thing’s arm in one of her own. The sickly sharp sound of bone snapping as she yanked up on the trapped limb under the elbow; its pulverized hand wrapped around her helmet and squeezed.

Another roar, of pain this time, that morphed to a gurgle when her knife slipped through its soft palate and into the brain. The grip went slack and she shouldered the corpse forward off her.

There was time for a breath as she watched his white armor slowly turn purple.

Blue tore through the air over her shoulder in burning streaks, two bolts catching her in the bicep and singing the skin beneath it. Her body hit the dirt while one hand snatched up the Ultra’s sword. She grunted as her eyes flicked to the motion tracker, hands flowing smoothly through the motions of popping a fresh magazine into her rifle without looking. Two spare.

More blue. Angry bolts of fire that howled over her head and stained the air cerulean.

She popped up to answer; fifteen bullets to pop the shield, five more through its neck. Another wave, and she pivoted. Another twenty rounds and a wail snatched away by the glassing’s sandstorm.

It went on like that through her last magazine; only the occasional dash to fresh cover to forestall grenades breaking the accelerating rhythm. Faster and faster it pounded, more blue rushing in to fill the gaps between the dust in the sky. More hingeheads, more roars. More bodies.

But closer. They were getting closer.

The gaps in the melody where she’d pop up to fire had vanished under a wave of cobalt. But she had to answer. To let it crescendo and consume her would be fatal.

Her head snapped out first, then the rifle. Two rounds towards a rushing elite at the plasma grenades on his waist. A wash of blue as he and three others were instantly immolated, and then a bolt caught her in the face.

There was a flash of light and four sharp stings across the bridge of her nose and cheek as her HUD shattered. Wind on her face.

When she opened her eyes there was a hole in her visor. Pale beige land, cracked with dryness and peppered with debris peered back at her curiously. It was framed in black and grey - the remnants of her visor - like a tear in a painting.

She watched an elite, entirely silent save for the scraps that dribbled through the tear in her eyesight.

A curse slipped her lips; the bolt must’ve fried every system in the helmet. She was blind and deaf with it on.

_Dead with it off_ , a voice from Onyx whispered.

Her hands found the seal, popped it, and ripped it off. The world rushed back in to meet her, sharp and jagged and unpleasant. She forgot how much her helmet evened out the world’s input so that nothing overwhelmed or deafened her. Without her helmet the world was bordering on too much too fast: the light from the glassing painfully bright, the bark of plasma rifles and her automated answers near deafening.

She hurled the thing away and primed a grenade. Her last.

Her legs launched her out of cover at full tilt, sidearming a bright blue grenade at a clump of targets as she did. She didn’t watch it connect. Knew it would stick. Instead she was pivoting toward the closest pair of footsteps: a Minor, three meters. Ten rounds to pop its shields, and a sidestep past the energy dagger aimed at her stomach. Her own sword didn’t miss, and split him from chest to shoulder in a burst of hissing blood and steam.

The assault rifle slipped to the dirt in exchange for catching his falling plasma rifle. She spun toward the next closest pair and rinsed it in blue until it stopped moving. Then the second, then the third, and the fourth, ignoring the plasma scores she collected like tokens. Ignoring the heat from the massive plasma beam that stalked ever closer. Ignoring the charred and scattered human bodies. Ignoring the pain.

The tenth was too close; dropped half his shields, but he just laughed and kept charging. Her blade met his and he pushed while she spun. The lack of resistance sent him spilling forward, and her spin ended with the blade cutting him in half.

Back to the footsteps. Bury them in plasma even while they crept ever closer, while more and more kept surging forward on the fringes of the dust storm through the husks of bombed-out buildings.

Another too close to kill in time, and another dispatched with the sword. Her spare hand dropped the plasma rifle, snagged the energy dagger on his belt and ignited it before she spun to face -

A blade - white-hot and iridescent - ripped through the air where her head had been, a roar in its wake. The dagger found his throat and the roar turned to choking. Footsteps behind her and she moved behind the dying hingehead to shove it bodily into its charging friend.

Spin, stab, sidestep, parry. Sidestep, parry, stab. Another rhythm. A new one. Punctuated with the roars of elites that leapt onto the jutting ribs of her half-buried concrete cover. Underlined by the endless rumble-hiss of a shipborne plasma beam creeping nearer.

Spin, stab, parry - an elite leapt on the spine of concrete behind her, laughed, and brought his sword down. It met air, and hers met his chest.

The plasma fire didn’t stop, but most of it slammed into the shielded backs of those surrounding her with only a few slipping through to splash across her body. But it kept her suit hot, turned the plating to slag that melted down to cloy the joints.

A grunt slipped her lips as a fresh volley of plasma burst across her flank, scorched it. The pain was distant and vague and barely noticeable under the rhythm of strikes, but, when she stepped left, her side all but gave way.

She stumbled, twisting halfway to barely dodge a slash of a sword that nicked her back. A step forward and she shoved her sword up through the thing’s pelvis and out the small of its back. Instinct had her lurching back to dodge the hiss of plasma and blade that flew through where her head had been.

Dagger and knife. That’s all she had now.

Against a ring of elites that howled and gnashed their teeth around her. Against the blazing sun that the plasma beam had grown to. Against every Covenant left on Reach.

Warmth trickled across her brow and nose, across her side and into the gap between skin and suit all the way down her thigh. It hurt to breathe, it hurt to stand. When she flexed her arms the cooled slag prevented full range of motion.

Faintly, under the cacophony of the world around her, she thought she could hear singing. Voices so thin and soft they were like the whisper of rustling leaves. A lullaby, and a distant memory.

She bared her teeth at the ring of elites, the taste of copper on her lips. None of them moved. All of them growled.

The sandstorm picked up, and with it, the song.

An elite howled and charged, and she parried, hamstrung him, and snapped his neck. Another followed immediately after - this time from behind her - a downward slash that cleaved through the shoulder of her kill. Her energy dagger found the line of his spine and followed it up and up until it erupted out the top of his shoulder in a torrent of sparkling violet. A third followed, then a fourth, and a fifth. One at a time to fight her.

The plasma fire had stopped.

Another, and another, and another. Constant howls and growls and spurts of blood until the ground squelched beneath her feet and the elites got too angry or too fed up to watch her take down any more.

They rushed all at once, a tide of colors tinted beige and dead by the dust. She couldn’t swing her arm without stabbing something. One kill, and a sluggish spin onto the next until a point blank plasma volley caught her in the chest and sent her stumbling backward. The hum of a charging rifle and she twisted, ignoring the spikes of pain in her chest.

Her dagger caught the elite in the throat right before another tackled her to the ground. It laughed, roared, and the song grew louder. Her head shifted left and a sparkling blade of plasma impaled the dirt where her skull had been. Warmth cascaded across her chest as her dagger found his guts and opened him up, a knife to the neck and a knee to the chest to get him off her because being on the ground meant _death_ and -

A hand in red plates shoved the corpse to the side and filled the spot it left. A Zealot, his scarlet blade already in motion toward her chest. She watched it shine for a moment on its path before it slipped into her stomach and pinned her to the ground.

The thing leaned close to smile at her. She coughed, splattered its face with blood, and smiled back.

And she stabbed it. Again and again and again, as fast and hard as she could. It gurgled a question, she laughed, and then it lurched forward to drag the blade through the ground.

And split her in half.

A charred line from hip to shoulder, a burst of wet, sticky scarlet across her cheek. A crescendo as the Zealot collapsed on top of her.

A blazing, nauseous sky with no stars in sight. A laugh that sounded more like a gasp.

And then she died.

* * *

Being dead didn’t feel like she expected it to, in that it _felt_ like anything at all.

It felt like pain; like someone had unspooled her vitals and tossed them on a campfire to sizzle. It felt like someone had turned her skull into a drum, it felt like she was breathing through a mess of broken glass.

It _hurt_ , and that was surprising.

There were... voices too. Distant and soft, like they were talking to her through a bulkhead. Nobody she recognized. No fathers, no Spartans. Just...people. People dragging a raw, caustic disappointment through her chest.

They spoke in soft, cooing tones with lilting syllables, but that was all she could decipher.

There was a face swaying on a field of mottled brown.

And then the pain returned to drown her.

* * *

She tried to move but couldn’t.

She tried again, her brain fuzzy with pain and unable to comprehend. Then again. On the fourth time it clicked. Bound. She was bound.

That realization had adrenaline spiking through her system and pushing the haze of pain back. One at a time, feeling in her limbs returned to her. One at a time, they hurt.

Captured then, by the Covenant. For sport or information.

That... that didn’t quite make sense, but she wasn’t sure why. It _had to be_ though, she was alive after all.

Her senses returned slowly. First hearing (it was mostly silent save for a soft crackling) then smell (was that woodsmoke?). Sight was taking longer.

A minute later she realized her eyes were closed.

The first try to get them open did nothing, and so did the second. The third had them cracking open only to close just as fast. It was brighter than a star and hurt just as much to look at.

She gave it a count of thirty and tried again. It hurt less that time.

And that was the routine she slipped into: one count, a crack of her eyes a little bit wider each time. Each time with a little less pain.

Brown was the first color to come through. Then orange, and then black. There were no more after that, only a steady deepening in composition and clarity that let the colors shade together into something resembling reality.

It was... soft, whatever it was. And it didn’t look Covenant. Had Insurrectionists captured her maybe? Or maybe some UNSC stragglers had dragged her into a safehouse on Reach.

But that... that shouldn’t have been possible, right?

Her right hand twitched on the bed. She’d... she’d almost died. She _should have_ died. That Zealot had cut her in half. The fist was still on her chest, slicing a line burning through her and sharpening with every beat of her heart. It hurt. Oh _fuck_ it hurt.

A groan trickled between her lips and into the air. Then another when she tried to look around. It morphed into a garbled scream when she tried to sit up, and the door flew open with it.

More adrenaline, more clarity. The shape looked almost human, but that didn’t quell the panic and the pain and the aggression that coursed through her veins. It said something, it said something _loud_ and stepped forward; placed a hand across her chest.

Her own caught it before it could touch. Fast for a human, slow for a Spartan. The shape yelped and-and-

“Who?” she tried to say, but the dried sandpaper of her mouth and throat turned it into a cough.

He - it looked like a he at least - said something again, something that entered her ears but got lost on the way to her brain.

Her hand gripped tighter. “Who?” She was able to hoarsely growl.

“Llewelyn! I’m Llewelyn!”

She frowned. It hurt to frown. Was that a callsign? A cell name?

“Wh-” a coughing fit racked her stomach and sent a fresh wave of agony surging through her body. So much so fast that she almost blacked out.

“Please. You’re still injured,” the voice called Llewelyn said. “Let me go and I can help.” That kept her awake. Kept her aware. She gripped the wrist tighter to force the pain away.

“You’re hurting me!” And then loosened it. Dropped it.

Vision was slow to return, but Llewelyn was careful to narrate everything they were doing. Not that she could feel any of it through her suit, save for the fleeting moments where his hands grazed exposed skin and she forced herself not to flinch.

When her sight came back it came back fully, barely a hint of blur to her eyes. Llewelyn was a slight man with a bound chest - she could recognize the signs herself after all these years - and sloppily cut hair.

He cringed when she looked at him, though he tried to hide it.

It was...wrong. Something about him, about her surroundings, was _wrong_. But her mind was foggy and slow and that only spurred frustration that made it slower.

Llewelyn gave her a hesitant smile that she did not return.

“Where am I?”

Shallow breaths kept the pain down, she knew that from experience.

“My husband and I’s hut on the edge of the Planasene forest.” She stared at him. “About a week’s travel from Kirkwall?”

She blinked, and Llewelyn shifted uncomfortably. “Do you...know where Kirkwall is?”

She couldn’t... she couldn’t _think_. Just stare at him. Look without really seeing and wait for her brain to catch up and snap everything around her together like a puzzle.

“The Trade Capital of the South?”

Kirkwall? The South? A flood of pain that erupted from her mouth in a choked scream, but she _had_ to sit up. _Had_ to see. The brown was wood, rough hewn wood without a single lightbulb or fleck of plastic. “What…” she swallowed another cry before leaning back against the wall. A few breaths to settle the vomit that beat against the backs of her teeth.

“You really shouldn’t be sitting up, you know.” The man looked like he wanted to stop her, but didn’t really know how. Or maybe he just didn’t want to risk losing a hand.

“What planet am I on,” she said through grinding teeth, ignoring the man’s instructions. It took another minute for her brain to register his silence. His eyes were blank and blinking.

“Planet?”

“Yes, _planet_.” This obviously wasn’t a ship, and it wasn’t Reach because she could still breathe the air. “World.” The word roused a pulse of recognition in his face that would have had her relaxing if it wasn’t for _everything else_.

“Well. I... Thedas, I suppose.” Llewelyn shifted again, wringed his hands a bit. “That’s as much of the ‘world’ as I know. Are you... do you know Thedas?”

Thedas. Wrong. That was _wrong_ , but… She growled. Nothing made any _fucking_ sense and her thoughts were too foggy and hobbled to grasp the reason. It...she was pretty sure it wasn’t a UNSC colony, not any of the ones left at least.

That thought loosed another streak of adrenaline and something adjacent to fear. She swung her legs - painfully slowly - over the left side of the bed, ignoring Llewelyn’s protests and the spots that danced across her vision.

Metal thunked against wood when her feet hit the floor, the spots shrinking even as something wet and warm started trickling down her thigh and flank. She didn’t...she _couldn’t_ stay here. Knew that, but didn’t know why. It - she tried to put weight on her legs and instantly collapsed, palms barely catching her in time - was it hostile? Was... where…

The world span beneath her hands, a swirling mess of brown that threatened her with thoughts of home. It...she didn’t like it. The adrenaline faded even while panic rose in her chest. Shallow breaths, she had to keep shallow breaths to stop the pain. A hand swiped across her vision and landed on her bicep - not even big enough to wrap halfway around - and she grasped at it. Missed.

The floor was much closer to her face all of a sudden. How did that happen?

Fuzz crept to the center of her vision while her head lolled to track the voice on her right.

A man. Lithe with a bound chest and...and pointed ears.

She passed out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi!!! This is the first thing I've published in a while, so pls go easy on me. I know this first chapter is rough and all (i really wanted to get it out the door), but I promise it gets better! Especially once we get to Kirkwall and delve into DA2 plot and companions. This chapter is mostly just setup and Lone Wolf from Reach. Not much character, not much other shit, just the beginning hook. Next chapter tho...
> 
> Anyway, please leave a comment if you enjoyed the chapter or want to beat me up over my grammar! Work and my writing hiatus haven't done wonders for that grammar knowledge of mine.


	2. AWOL

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Six wakes up, begins to heal, and is immediately overwhelmed. 
> 
> One step at a time. Just... one step at a time.

Six sat utterly still while Llewelyn peeled the remnants of her ruined bodysuit off one strip at a time. The elf - the _elf_ \- muttered constantly in a strange language that had his hands glowing as they passed over her, warm and unsettling. 

Magic, he’d said. She wasn’t sure if she believed that yet. 

Fingers slipped between the suit and her skin again and she tried to hide her flinch. Focused more on the forest through the window.

“Does it hurt?” A high voice on her right. Brown eyes flit briefly to the source: a child, barely clear of being a toddler, sat beneath the bed frame. Her arms were crossed on the sheets and her head rested upon them. 

Blackened flakes of blood drifted down her skin, and Six resumed her focus on the forest. “No.”

“It looks like it hurts,” the girl said. Six remain focused on the window. Watched the songbirds flutter from tree to tree. “Are you _sure_ it doesn’t hurt?”

“It did,” Six conceded through gritted teeth. “But it doesn’t now.”

“Give our guest some space, honey, alright?” Six didn’t need to look at the man to hear the smile in his voice. 

It made her frown grow.

A long minute of silence passed. It was nice. It gave her time to listen to the birds sing. The hand slipped into her suit again and she flinched, the muscles in her neck spasming beneath the skin. A yank and a sound like cracking ice and another slip of titanium alloy mesh filtered to the floor in a flurry of dried blood.

“Oh, what is that?“

Six tried to take a deep breath, but it only hit against the bruised walls of her ribs with a fresh spike of pain hissing through her chest. A brief moment to swallow before her eyes dragged themselves down to where Llewelyn’s hands had degloved the most recent piece. Her thigh. 

It was a miniature mountain range of burned flesh. She looked at it, traced the valleys, the plateaus; they were red and writhing and angry.

“Tamar, honey,” the hands moved away, but her eyes remained on her thigh. “How about you go find your father, okay? I think I heard him shout for you.”

A groan as Tamar pouted into the bedsheets. “But you _are_ my father.” Her voice was a whine that grated down Six’s nerves.

Not so for the elf. He only chuckled and mussed her hair. “Your _other_ father. Go on now.”

Tamara grumbled all the way to the door, making a point to do it more loudly once the door closed.

“Sorry about her,“ Llewellyn was smiling at her, she just knew it. “You know how curious kids are -” she didn’t “- and she’s got it especially bad.”

Six just grunted and watched two birds chase each other, spiraling and diving and chirping. Another moment of silence, another pair of birds that flew by the window.

“It’s a good thing you woke when you did. I… couldn’t figure out your armor. Any longer and it would’ve been a stew of blood poisoning and gangrene.” Another heavy slap as more strips of her bodysuit met the floor, and Three-twelve nodded absently. 

She was too busy trying to ignore the slithering air on her skin and the arcs of pain from peeling back the suit that had almost melted into her skin. “I’ve never seen anything like it before. Is it Tevinter make?”

“No.” She had no idea what ‘Tevinter’ even was. Not yet. 

“Hm,” his hands stopped for a moment as he leant back to study the slagged remnants of her armor. Only the leg plating had really survived, and it was far from unscathed. “Qunari then? Oh! Or maybe Antivan? I hear they have good armorers.” 

Six shifted to watch the man, and he blushed. “Sorry. I’m nearly as bad as Tamar aren’t I? Guess we can see where she got it from then.”

The words elicited a huff, Llewelyn’s hands passing in quick movements before suddenly stopping dead with an “oh!” He rose and moved to dig through the pile of bandages and bottles that had accrued in the corner from Six’s treatment. “I nearly forgot,” the air was cold and slick without the warmth of his hands. She couldn’t decide which was more uncomfortable. “These are yours, aren’t they?”

Her tags, half melted, dangled from his grip. “They were almost melted beneath your breastplate, but I managed to save them with a quick cooling spell. I meant to give them to you, but it slipped my mind. Sorry about that, Ueda.”

The name slapped her across the face and froze her body to the bedsheets. 

“That’s your name, right? That’s what Leif thought it meant at -” 

“Yes,” she snapped, hand snatching the tags from his hand. It hurt. It hurt a lot. “It’s my name.” Even though it hadn’t been. Not for a _long_ time.

“I… didn’t mean to offend.” Llewelyn approached her like a cornered dog, hands raised before they rested back on her legs to continue peeling off the bodysuit and healing. “If I said something…”

Six just grunted, moved back to glare at the forest, and let the hours pass in silence.

* * *

Another two days before she could walk to their kitchen, and a third before she could make it outside the house without being exhausted. By the seventh day she could walk from the room they’d placed her in all the way to the lean-to shed outside where they’d left her equipment. 

It was infuriating. It was unacceptable. She was _weak_ , weaker than she’d ever been and with only the vague healing timetable of a man claiming to be magic to placate her restlessness. 

She hated it. She absolutely _hated_ it. 

So she’d stow herself away in the shed to wordlessly examine and repair her gear. Let the monotony of reconstruction stifle the rage and frustration that gnawed on the edge of her thoughts. Not that there was much to salvage. The last few minutes on Reach had left her suit a mess of mostly melted alloy, wiring, and pseudo-fabric. It was all little more than refuse and scrap. The only saveable portions were the legs. 

All of her attention funnelled into salvaging those plates, maybe in part to stop her mind whirling from the… the new world she found herself in. Wake up, wipe them clean, carefully separate them from the wiring and the charred bodysuit underneath with her knife, eat, sleep. Repeat for a week. 

The girls - Ellena and Tamar - would watch her work when one of their dad’s wasn’t chasing them down to do this or that chore around the farm. They’d sit on her periphery, getting a little closer and more verbose each day, until they were barely phased by her one word answers and curt tone. They even picked up on her preference for silence. Eventually. 

By the time she’d severed the plates from the guts of the suit and stitched them with spare leather belts (and by ‘she’ she meant Llewelyn’s husband Leif) the pain had faded to a dull - albeit constant - throb. Even better: she could walk for virtually the whole day without losing her breath. 

Running. That was her next task. 

“Were you a soldier, Ueda?”

The name more than the question ripped her from her thoughts and froze her hands where they were on the Mjolnir plates. She’d been so relaxed and focused on the task that she hadn’t noticed Tamar slip into the shed beside her. _Sloppy_. 

“Yes,” she answered, pointedly turning her attention back to the repetitive hand over hand motion of stitching. 

“I knew it! Pa said you might’ve been a merecer-” Tamar paused, frowned. “A merker- a merekaneery -”

“A mercenary?”

“Yeah! That! But you don’t look like a - one of those to me.”  
  


“Seen many of them, hm?” All the way out here in the woods they were probably more farmers with pitchforks than real mercenaries.

Blond hair bounced as the girl nodded emphatically. “Yep! Louis’ dad is one an’ he’ll bring him treats back from the caravans he guards! He has a biiig suit of armor!” Tamar spread her small arms wide for emphasis. “It’s shiny and blue and I dunno what it’s made of.” 

Six nodded absently and hissed as she stabbed her palm with the needle.

The girl raised a hand to her chin and her periphery, brows knitting together. “It’s probably steel or veridium or somethin’. Right?“

“How should I know,“ she grunted.

“Well, you know a lot about armor.” The girl glanced meaningfully at the salvaged plates scattered across the dirt floor of the shed. “Both my Pa’s said they couldn’t even figure out how to get you outta yours! And they tried for hours!”

Six frowned. “That’s different.”

“How?“

Six sighed. Dropped the needle and let the salvaged plate rest on her thigh. It was a comforting weight. “It just is.“

Tamar hadn’t moved, and she still stared up at her expectantly.

A breath slipped out her mouth and ruffled the cotton close to her chest. “I’ve… spent a lot of time in this armor. I know it. Well.“

“How much time?“

Six let her eyes roll over the metal. Haphazard and random, its spread was a far cry from the neat, orderly layout of normal. It was undisciplined. “Almost half my life.”

For a minute there was silence, but she didn’t look to see what the girl was thinking. Her thoughts were lost in the grooves and scars marring the metal. In the memories.

“You… didn’t take it off?“ 

“No,“ she didn’t. Not really. Never longer than she had to. It had been with her longer than anyone and being without it made her feel slow, weak, and bare. Exposed. It made her hyper aware of every movement in her vision and every pair of eyes on her body. Anyone of them could kill her with a lucky shot without it on.

A glance at Tamar. 

It helped her hide her face too. Her expressions and body language all lost in the lethal mass of plating and shields.

Now her skin was bare and so pale it reflected the sunlight like a mirror. She was acutely aware of every breeze, every time the stitching of her clothes shuffled against her skin. She was exposed. Especially here, especially now. 

“How did you pee?”

She shifted to look at the girl; was that a real question? Or was it a subtle jab?

It was hard to tell, and that rankled.

“Like normal,“ she said, settling on genuine curiosity.

“You peed _inside_ your armor?!” Her shrill little voice filled the shed and made Six jump. “Ew!“

“No,” she snapped then paused. “Well yes, but no.” How the hell was she supposed to explain catheters to a medieval farm child? “The armor… magic’d it away.”

Another pause. A longer one. She didn't want to look at the girl to see what her face was like, but she did. Reluctantly. Six wasn’t good with expressions, nor reading people, but if she had to guess then she’d say the girl’s face was an equal mix of shock and awe.

“Are you serious?” 

“Yes.”

“Wow,” the girl whispered with sparkling eyes. “El!” Tamar snapped around, shouted, and sprinted out the door. “El! Guess what!”

Six watched the spot where she’d been for a moment, then turned back to the plate still laying snugly across her thigh, thankful for the quiet.

* * *

Another week passed before she could run reliably, and another two days before her body didn’t scream at her typical sparring routine. The inactivity grated on her, but it was better than those first few days at least. 

The moment she could she began to slip bits and pieces of her fitness regimen back into her everyday. And, slowly, a new routine began to form: wake up, run for as long as she could - usually around an hour or two - then slip into a sparring match with one of the hardwoods lining the farm’s property.

It wasn’t even a comparison between this - her fist thunked against the bark, rattling up her arm with a small side of pain - and her regimen and sparring back home. She was slower here. Worse. Half because of her suit being slagged and half because her wounds still hadn’t healed fully. Maybe something more too.

A grunt as she spun and axe-kicked the tree twice - at least, according to the elven ‘mage’ living in the woods they hadn’t healed fully. That was another thing, the magic, the elves, the _everything_. It was easy to put her situation out of her head when she hyperfocused on training or salvaging or working out - however much she could in her state - but slip out of any of them for even a moment and she was staring at a family with pointed ears in patched up clothing. A man that hummed and glowed and had a staff always nearby. A destroyed Mjolnir suit and two broken energy weapons to go with. 

A forest under unfamiliar stars. 

Another strike against the tree, harder. So much that it ripped a gasp from her lips and locked her arm up. Pain. A fresh wave that had her grinding her teeth. 

She _hated_ it. 

The tree shook as she kicked it. Again, and again, and again. Until it drizzled acorns on her head like raindrops and soreness trickled into the edges of her shin. One final kick and a short, inarticulate scream of frustration before she backed away, chest heaving and hurting.

“How do you do that?” Another voice, too young to be an adult and too old to be Tamar’s. She rounded on it, and Ellena stood there with wide eyes and hands behind her back. 

“Do what?” Six huffed, turning back to the tree and rolling her shoulders. The muscles there would _not_ stop complaining. 

“Move so fast! And-and fight like that!”

“Training,” she said to the tree. Footsteps close behind her, and when she turned Ellena was inside arm’s reach. A fact Three-twelve did _not_ enjoy.

“Can you teach me? Please?” Three-twelve turned to face the girl, and she wilted the smallest bit. Small hands vanished in the stained hem of her shirt.

Six watched her. Watched her fiddle with the ends of her shirt nervously, watched green eyes flit from tree to tree like a breeze. Watched her cheeks flush. Her first thought, reflexively, was that she didn’t have time with a war on. That it would steal her focus away from her objective. 

  
And then Six remembered she was a dead woman living on a farm. She had nothing but time. “Why?”

The forest rustled softly around them, the songs of alien birds and wildlife rising to match the afternoon sun. It slipped through the ragged and ill-fitting shirt Llewelyn had loaned her to warm her back. 

“Well, I mean, it would be fun -” it wouldn’t “- and…” the girl set her shoulders, her hands calming as those green eyes finally shifted up to meet hers. To hold them. “I want to protect Tam and my Pa’s.”

Six felt her head cock the smallest bit. “They seem to be fine for now.”

“They won’t always be.” Six stared at her. “What?” Ellena said, a little fire creeping into her voice and eyes. “People get old, people get hurt. Pa says we’re safe here, but we aren’t ever _really_ safe with the Templars. I want… I want to be able to protect them when they can’t protect themselves.”

Three-twelve held her eyes for a moment, then two. Waiting for them to flit away and break contact, but they didn’t. “Alright,” she said, nodding and watching Ellena’s face break into a wide grin. There was nothing better to do anyway, and this would help her pass the time and drain some of her anxious energy productively.

“First is your stance,” her knee hit the grass as she knelt, hands moving out to shift Ellena into a proper posture. The girl nodded sharply, grin drowning under pursed lips and scrunched brows as she memorized the position. 

Six stood and walked her through the motions of a proper punch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ayyyy, look at that! A new chapter at a reasonable time of day! 
> 
> Sorry about the length and content of this one. Again, it’s setup and character stuff. Showing how angry and brooding Six is in her current situation as well as her recovery (takes a lot outta ya when you die after all) and some important plot-wise characters. This chapter is also meant to function as a sort of not-quite-speed-run of her physical healing, but enough to give you an idea of what’s going on without lingering on going through the day-by-day recovery process. Trust me, it’s boring, and all the important moments are here.
> 
> Don’t worry, the focus will remain on Six and the DA crew (once we meet them), but some folk in the above chapter serve as an important little catalyst for some stuff. No points for guessing who or how. 
> 
> Anyway, hope this one didn’t bore you to death. Next wednesday we’ll have much more goin’ on and the plot will pick up formally. Gettin’ closer to meeting Hawke and crew! Fuck, I can’t wait. I do love to write them. 
> 
> Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to get back to cooking my solo Thanksgiving meal. Sad, I know. But it’ll taste good at least. And, as usual, do feel free to punch me in the face over my grammar. Trying to get better, but if you notice anything lemme know.
> 
> Have a good one, y’all. Catch ya next Wednesday.


	3. A Nagging Question

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Llewelyn lights a fire, Ellena starves, and Six asks an important question.

Six shrugged the rain off her shoulders in slow, careful movements. The pain from her mounting regimen and the constant anxiety of pulling a muscle - making her even more bedbound - niggling at her thoughts.

A quick turn and sigh, and her back was sliding down the bark of what had become her designated practice tree. An old, gnarled willow coated in lichen and quivering in the evening shower. 

It was a welcome cooldown, even if it raised the humidity from uncomfortable to stifling. It half felt like she was swimming, each breath a bit deeper than needed to make sure she got more air than water. _It’s_ _cool though_ , part of her chided. Like AC in an ONI base. 

The rivers of sweat down her body turned to lines of ice water, and she loved it. Her head met the bark and her eyes drifted shut. Rain like a soft static melding with the skittering of forest animals as they shuffled for cover. The crisp air tinged with the smell of sea salt. Grass on her skin like a hundred tiny caresses.

For once, she didn’t flinch at its touch. Just sat there. Memorized it. 

They’d not had forests like this on Jericho. They’d barely had forests at all, really. Just vast, flat plains of palm grass sprinkled like salt over the planet’s archipelago. But the cool air and the sea salt dragged those thoughts of home up and out regardless, and her eyes opened to quell them. 

Gray skies and rippling leaves welcomed her back, reminding her that she was not in a little farmhouse on the outskirts of Damask. Reminded her that she was a dead woman on an alien world with elves and magic and barely enough technological advancement to manage plumbing. 

Three fingers moved absently to trace the scar across her chest from hip to shoulder. Once, twice, a few times more. It was healed now - most of her was. Her body was still sore and stiff from inactivity, but it wasn’t about to fall apart if she walked too far up a hill.   
  


It left her with a disturbing thought: what to do next?

Wait around until she got better was no longer an option, and nor was radioing command to get her next batch of orders and targets. She was adrift and alone. Riddled with anxiety. 

What was the right call? What was her next step? Where the hell should she go?

Footsteps on her left rescued her from her thoughts and dragged her eyes down the hill. Toward the direction of the farmhouse: one third prison, one third hospital, one third… something else. Llewelyn was trudging through the wet grass, both hands carrying a beaten ceramic plate covered with an old rag. 

He waved when she caught his eye. “Ueda! Thought I’d find you up here.” Another few rough steps closer, his smile growing when he joined her under the willow’s cover. “Thought I’d bring you your dinner,” he said, handing her the old plate. 

Six took it carefully, aware that a spasm of her fingers could snap the thing in half. “Thank you.”

“Not a problem, not a problem at all! What kind of host would I be if I let you starve yourself to death, hm?” 

“One that still saved my life.” The words bounced off the plate between the bread and cheese and ricocheted off into the woods.

“I had the power to help you, so I did.” Six couldn’t see the man - too wrapped up in her meager meal, but she got the impression he shrugged. Was it really that simple for him? Was it really that complex for her?

Sure, she saved people. But that was an obligation, a duty. There was no choice or morals in the matter; any amount of lives lost to the Covenant was unacceptable. Her fingers stalled, set the bread down as she glanced up to search his face. 

Even sitting, she was almost taller than him. 

“I never thanked you for that.” It was an acknowledgement wrapped in a half question. An observation of fault. 

“You never needed to.”

No, maybe she didn’t. But still, “thank you.”

Llewelyn looked away to watch the rain roll over his roof, his face a dark little enigma. “Of course.” He took a breath then shifted his focus back to her. “Happy to help.”

Six hummed and picked the bread back up, content to end the conversation there and let the rain fill in the gaps. 

“Should we expect you back late again? It’s giving Leif anxiety, you know. He keeps thinking you’re a Templar barging in in the middle of the night.”

Three-twelve huffed. She somewhat understood the man’s nervousness, but after the fourth night of being ambushed by a half-asleep elf with a dull longsword it got a bit old. “Probably,” she said, offering a “the legs are almost finished,” by way of explanation.

“Exciting! Tomorrow the girls can help you put them on -” Six frowned through her bread “- if you’re comfortable with that.”

“I don’t…” she paused, frowned a little more. Tried to parse her feelings that all read resounding ‘no’s. 

“That’s fine,” Llewelyn rushed to reassure her, “maybe another time. Or maybe you can tell them both about it while you ‘train’ Ellena?”

Six shifted a bit, frown lessening. Though the thought of the smallest’s potential questions had it blooming back again. “Alright.”

“Now it’s my turn to thank _you_ ,” Llewelyn’s voice was mischievous, and his wink only confused her more. 

“For what?”

  
“Keeping them out of the house,” he said, before turning round and leaving the cover of the willow tree for the farm far below.

* * *

Both of Six’s hands wrapped around Ellena’s right as she took a knee. Delighted in the fact that, for once, she couldn’t feel the grass’ brush. “First, take your thumb out of your fist,” she critiqued. “You’ll snap a ligament whenever you hit something.” Ellena frowned and nodded while Tamar asked what a ligament was. 

“Second, you’re not throwing any weight into the punch.” She stood, ran through the motions of a proper right hook as slow as she could. It was _extremely_ difficult to not speed up. “Step into the blow if you can, lean into it if you can’t. It adds force.” 

“No thumb, step, lean,” Ellena muttered. “No thumb,” she formed a fist, a _proper_ fist, “step, lean.”

“Ueda? What’s a ligament?”

“No thumb,” Ellena shifted into low stance, feet a little narrower than her shoulders - something Six noted for later - “step.” Her upper body pivoted and her right leg followed, shoulders dipping a bit into the blow as her arm began to fully extend. “Lean,” she finished with a hopeful smile. 

“Your stance is too narrow.” The smile died. “Feet as wide as your shoulders, and hips lower to the ground.” 

The girl nodded again. Waited. Her eyes flicked up and a fresh grin began to crawl onto her face. “Is that all?”

Six grunted a ‘yes’ and motioned for her to go again. 

But she didn’t. Instead the girl jumped and whooped, the sound carrying a few feet before vanishing into the darkened woods. “I threw a good punch!”

“You threw an _adequate_ punch,” she corrected, but not even that got the girl to settle and try again. 

“What does ad-eh-quat mean?”

“It means ‘good enough,’” Ellena answered her sister, glancing between the two of them with something Six might just call ‘smugness.’

“It _means_ ,” Six bit out, “you go _again_.”

“Aw c’mon, Ueda -” her irritation spiked at the name “- the Sun set an hour ago and I’m _hungry_.”

“Your fathers told me they’d bring us dinner when it’s time to eat. No sooner.” And something about Llewelyn’s tone told her she wasn’t supposed to bring the kids back before then. An ‘all-clear’ as it were. 

She didn’t know _why_ , but that had never stopped her before. She had a task and she’d do it. “This is supposed to make up for your chores, isn’t it? A whole day of them, and we’ve only been going for about seven hours.”

Ellena groaned and pitched backward onto the grass. “I wanna eaaat.” In the pale moonlight the girl looked almost like a corpse.

Her frown morphed into a scowl for the third or fourth time that afternoon. “Up,” she barked, but the girl just cracked an eye to hold her gaze for a second, two. 

Then she faked a death gurgle and lolled her head to the left, tongue sticking out like an untucked shirt. “I died,” Tamar devolved into a torrent of giggles that the forest greedily snatched up behind her. “You starved me to death.”

Something bucked in her chest, forced a growl from her throat. It matched the words to her sight and filled in the gaps. Added blood and viscera and missing limbs. Scorch marks from plasma wounds that she could see straight through. Then the forest turned to palm fields and the sea breeze to sickly ozone and the smell of roasting pig.

Her heart accelerated in her chest, augmentations kicking in and launching adrenaline through her body like a rocket. Everything was sharp: the moon too bright, the forest too close, the wind on her _skin_. She could _feel it._

She blinked, and the image vanished. Reverted to a little girl in a clearing under the stars. 

A ragged breath spilled from her mouth and across the ground like vomit. 

“Ueda?” Tamar’s voice. Close. Very, _very_ close. Close enough that all she had to do was shift her eyes slightly to the left and a child popped into her periphery. A tug on her shirt. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine.” Even more after she took a large step away from the girl and over toward her sister. A sister that lounged with her hands behind her head as she watched the constellations slowly drift. “Up. Now.”

“Come oooon, Ueda! A break! Or food! Something!” Ellena sat up, palms stained a pale green. “Anything!”

  
  
A swell of frustration slithered up her throat and battered against the backs of her teeth, but she would _not_ let it out. Would _not_. One very, _very_ careful breath, “soon. When your fathers -”

“What’s that light?”

An inarticulate scream of frustration slipped her lips before she could strangle it. Whipped around to tell Tamar that it was probably the _moon_ , but -

But the light was orange and red and belched a veil of woodsmoke over the stars. 

It was fire, and it was coming from the farm. 

The adrenaline came roaring back and her whole body settled into an intimately familiar calm. A focus on the moment and nothing but. Cloth rustled against her neck as she snapped back toward a slowly rising Ellena. “Stay here,” she ordered, and burst into a sprint. 

Into the woods and toward the house. With grasping limbs and roots reaching out like hands to snag her. With stars that winked in and out overhead, laughing at her. With the smell of woodsmoke and crackle of fire growing with every step.

She ran as fast as her legs could carry her, and it was still so much slower than she was used to. _No suit, no shields, not even your knife_. She’d gotten so comfortable - or resigned - that she’d stopped carrying it on her.

  
  
Idiotic, absolutely _idiotic_.

All she had was the plating tied to her legs and her bare hands. 

The fire cackled at her. Flickering and fattening between the trees like a spotlight warming up. Casting sharp, angry shadows across the forest floor. 

Close, she was close now. Near enough that the cackle had turned to a swollen hiss that drowned the woodland’s ambiance. Sent gooseflesh up her arms even as the temperature rose. 

Three-twelve exploded out of the treeline and into the farm’s clearing. Five silhouettes, all too large and broad to be either Llewelyn or Leif. Hostile action. Or they were distant neighbors come to watch the blaze. _Unlikely,_ she thought, _we were closest and just now noticed._

  
  
No screams from inside the house, which meant either no one trapped or no one alive. 

The nearest one turned at the sound of her feet and shouted something. Something lost to the flame for her, but had the other silhouettes turning to face her all at once. The firelight ate their left halves, spit them out orange and serrated. The biggest, a rugged half shadow in soot-stained armor, stepped toward her.

  
  
Eight meters between them. 

“Hail, stranger! ‘Fraid you’re too late to help with the blaze, farm’s already lost.”

Six didn’t answer for a moment, just watched the half-lit group shift from foot to foot. Brown eyes slipped back to the lead man. Shorter than her, but broad shouldered and well muscled. The haft of something rose at an angle over his left shoulder. “What happened?”

  
  
His face twitched, but the blaze swallowed any expression. “Grim tale, that.”

Three-twelve stared at him. 

The man sighed, ran a gleaming hand through his hair. “We burned it, y’see. Had to.”

Rage boiled in her gut, cut up her throat and made her growl. “ _Had_ to?”

“Aye. Didn’t have an option, the magic had probably seeped into the wood. If the mage hadn’t cast traps throughout the place already.”

“It was _infected_!” One of the half-silhouettes, a woman’s voice. 

She took a step forward, but the man didn’t react. “Llewelyn and Leif. Where are they?”

“I don’t know. With the Maker’s mercy maybe they lived.” Something tightened in her breast. “The Templars are just and righteous folk after all. Only kill ‘em if they need to.” 

Words caught in her throat, clogged on anger like mud in a storm drain. Again, and this time they filtered through in a hiss. “Which way did they go?”

The silhouettes froze, hands drifting down to their belts. “I can’t tell ya that, stranger. Wouldn’t even if I knew. Can’t take the risk that you might free ‘em.”

“You turned them over then.”

He winced, twisted up to watch the treeline behind her. “Aye, I did. Terrible thing, but it had to be done.” His shoulders set. “For the sake of their family, and my own.”

Another step and she could make out his face. Washed out, dusty; the firelight chiseling his visible features into a frowning caricature. It froze and then twisted, taking her silence as curiosity. “They were good folk, always kind to me and mine. But… I took a job up near Antiva. Met this old woman and her daughter - sweet as anything. And a mage too.” His face looked like she should hear bones breaking whenever he spoke. “I helped them with their homestead for a week or two before the Templars came. And I watched them both transform into these… these _things_.” His whole form shook, bits of soot drifting to the ground like snow. “Maker help me, but knowing that any moment that mage could’ve - without me _here_?” His hand cut the air in front of him, “no. Something had to be done.”

She could see, with the fire dying down and the moonlight taking its place, that his armor was distinctly blue. 

A crack and a roar as the main strut of roof snapped in half and plummeted to the floor in a plume of ash. They watched it; he sighed. “Now all that’s left is to find the girls.” Her body went cold. “Don’t suppose you’ve seen them anywhere?”

“Yes,” another step - _three meters_ \- and, while the shadows behind him gripped their swords a bit tighter, he only smiled. “I have.” 

She rushed forward, broke his jaw, and snapped his neck.

The shadows screamed and cursed, metal hissing on metal as they drew their swords. A rush of air as the closest stepped forward with an overhead swing that she sidestepped, fingers slipping the dagger from his waist and sheathing it in his neck. 

Another scream, a name this time, and her legs launched her forward and low into the closest two. A duck and a spin and a roundhouse that slammed against the woman’s knee with a satisfying crunch. The woman howled and crumpled, hands clutching the ruined joint as her lips spilled prayers. 

The next tried to stab her, but the blade found only air. One weighted punch square to the woman’s nose solicited another, softer crunch. She howled, and Six stepped behind her, neck fitting neatly into the crook of Six’s elbow. She twisted, and the howling stopped. 

Three-twelve turned to where the final shadow had been only to find a lonely sword and a shaped darkness melting into the far treeline.

Which just left…

“By the Maker’s light I am protected, by his mercy I am saved, by his -” Six crouched in front of the woman. Pale skin, blond hair, rounded ears. Her shattered knee spasmed and every other breath was a hiss.

  
  
“Which way did the Templars go?” Her voice was flat, toneless.

“I don’t know! We got here after they arrived - a few hours after! Germaine was insistent, he didn’t want to -” her eyes went wide and her words turned gargled. A cough sprayed blood across her chest. 

The blade slipped free of her neck as Six rose and moved toward the embers of the farmhouse. She left the dagger behind in the dirt. It was poor steel, and barely sharpened. 

Brown eyes watched the smoke drift lazily into the sky for a second. Then she was trudging back toward the treeline, back toward the girls. 

Two pairs of glinting light at its edge stopped her. Built a pressure in her throat that would not go away. 

Her thoughts circled, stopped, started again. Catching on that question: what was she supposed to do now?

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH. Sorry about the late timing of this chapter (few hours off my usual, I know) and the (probably) pretty poor grammar and writing standards for this one. I got off work to proofread today’s and realized Wow! It sucked!
> 
> So I wrote a new chapter! 
> 
> Speaking of which, only one more chapter left in the prologue arc and then we officially get into DAII and Six in Kirkwall! I’m so so so excited! 
> 
> As usual, feel free to point out any grammatical errors or story issues in this chapter - I’m sure they are plentiful - and thanks for reading! 
> 
> Hope y’all stay safe, and I’ll catch ya next wednesday.


	4. Kirkwall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Six and the girls make landfall in Kirkwall with some colorful companions, and go their separate ways.

The firelight cut a flickering swathe of orange out of the woods around them, each movement of her hands sending long, dull shadows to meet the dark. The reflection in her newly acquired longsword made for a good mirror to clean the flecks of blood off her face. They drifted to the ground slowly.

“Do you… often kill people?”

She paused only long enough to have her eyes flicker up to the girl’s before resuming. Three-twelve wet her finger idly and wiped away some flakes of blackened red beneath her eye. “Yes,” she said, tone flat. 

A minute passed. Her face was nearly clean when the girl asked, “are they bad people?”

Her light brown eyes didn’t leave the blade this time, too consumed with making sure no flecks of black and red were stuck inside her eyebrows. “Yes,” she said again. Her fingernail dug away at a hidden flake that just barely caught the firelight. 

Ellena’s feet shifted a tad, just enough to crunch into the pine needles and dried leaves. Enough to have her eyes flitting up for a moment to watch the girl shift awkwardly. Those green eyes met hers for a second and then snapped away to watch the shadows. “So… you only kill bad people then?”

She killed the Covenant too, _but they aren’t really people are they?_ It brought the barest hint of upturned lips to her face, just enough to maybe be a trick of the light if you caught it wrong. “I kill monsters too,” and this time her tone was lighter, easier. Enough so that it had Ellena’s shoulders relaxing and her eyes coming back to meet hers.

“Like demons?”

This time she actually did manage a smile, even if she was the only one that got the humor of the question. “Yes, like demons.”

The girl hunched her shoulders forward and cast one quick glance over to the tent on their left to make sure her sister was sleeping. Now assured that her sibling couldn’t hear them, her words poured out. “What were they like? Were they scary? How tall were they? Did they have breath that smells like Tevinters and corpses just like the stories say? What spells did they cast? How long were their toenails?”

Each question had her little form leaning that much further forward; green eyes alight with curiosity and hands tense on her knees. 

“Toenails? Interesting thing to be concerned about,” she remarked, moving to polish the salvaged breastplate and gauntlets the mercenaries had posthumously donated to her. They were stained with mud and blood, and only half fit her tall frame. _Still,_ she thought, _maintenance is vital._ A rusted breastplate would get her killed as sure as a false step. _Take care of your gear and your gear will take care of you_ , Mendez had said. 

The girl blushed a tad, one hand raising to rub the back of her head. “Well, uh. Yeah. Louis -” a flinch “- well, he always said that demons had really long, gross toenails and fingernails. With dirt and blood and guts and lyrium all caked under there like-like… like dirt after a day in the garden! But… permanent.”

Six nodded, sharp and small, and the girl seemed to relax a bit, blush fading. She took a moment, brows barely knitting together and smile drowning in her face’s return to neutrality, to think. “They did all have talons and claws; never washed them either. Except for the ones made of worms.”

“Ew. Worms?” Ellena shivered and her eyes went to scan the ground. “How did… how do you fight a bunch of worms?”

“Targeted, nonconsensual limb rearrangement,” a bit of water from her canteen on the torn piece of cloth she’d juryrigged as a rag, “everything is vulnerable at the joints.”

The soft, squeaky sound of her rag polishing the steel and the hiss-crackle-pop of the last logs burning up in the fire were the only sounds. It was relaxing, monotonous work, maintaining her equipment. Almost meditative. Small, circular motions until she could see her orange tinted reflection and then on to scan for new imperfections. Repeat. Repeat until the whole thing shined like a mirror. 

“Ueda?” 

Her hand slipped, the rag sliding over and across the stain and on up to the collar. Dirtied fabric stopped at the edge in a tense hand linked to her spine by a thread of unease. “Yes?” she asked, very deliberately moving her palm back to the stain that now spread in a scattered brown line straight up the chest. 

Another pause, and her hand slowly resumed its circular motion. 

“Do you… I mean…” the girl swallowed once, eyes searching the ground and hands moving to rub her biceps. Slowly, and then all at once, those green eyes met hers and the girl’s hands moved to clench the hem of her worn shirt. “Will you visit us?” Dirty hands unclenched the hem then clenched again. “In the Chantry, I mean.”   
  


It was hard to admit it, but the question caught her off guard; left her brows a little furrowed and a slight frown on her face. _Visit them?_

Ellena seemed to take her frown as a denial, because her shoulders slumped and her hands shifted to fiddling idly with dangling threads. “That’s okay. I know you’re busy and I know you’ve not known us long and-and you might not even stay in Kirkwall -” each sentence had those little fingers moving quicker, snapping over each other to catch and twine a rope out of the threads, “- and you don’t have to, I know it’s a terrible city and -”

“Ellena,” she spoke, in the same voice she’d use to snap civilians and hysterical privates out of shock, only lighter. By a fraction. The girl instantly stilled, eyes raising from the hem of her shirt to meet her own. “I will visit if I stay in Kirkwall.”

The anxiety left Ellena’s body in a sigh, a smile replacing it. “Thank you, Ueda. I know that… that you don’t have to do that. Any of this really. But, well, it would be nice to have a familiar face.” The smile grew, and it almost warmed Six as much as the fire. “It’s very kind of you.”

She only hummed and nodded in response, fingers moving back to the relaxing, cyclical motions of cleaning. _Kind._ Was it really? Was any of this kind? It was just… responsibility to her. Duty, almost. Brown eyes flickered up to the child opposite her and then over to the ramshackle tent that housed her toddler sister. They would not make it on their own, not without struggle. This was just a task that needed doing. A problem.

She was built to solve problems. 

“I’m off to bed,” and the girl stood and yawned to enunciate her statement. 

“I’ll wake you when it’s your watch,” Six stated to her reflection in the steel. In the corner of her eye Ellena nodded, smile unflinching at the prospect of being woken up. 

“Okay, I… sleep well, Ueda.” 

She lingered for a few seconds in the tent flap, long enough for Six to get the hint and raise her head ever so slightly. “You too.”

The smile grew, then vanished behind a drape of cotton. 

Six returned the breastplate to her chest with careful movements and cast her focus out into the shadows around them. Yes, Ellena and her sister were a problem that needed solving, and the Chantry orphanage seemed to be the only reliable way to do that. After that… well, she’d just have to see if there were any other open problems.

* * *

The city that loomed at the edge of the horizon was not what she expected. After years flying out from Earth and Reach on taskings, ‘city’ evoked a very specific image of massive skyscrapers made from polished glass that stretched up into the clouds side by side with a sprawling, concrete ground. The whole thing connected by slips of metal that spanned the gaps like threads from a spider’s web. Going from there to here had left her expecting something… short. Primitive. More like a field hospital than a city, and with too much wood and not enough urban planning to be even that. 

They were still a ways out - about six or seven klicks if she had to guess - but already the silhouette didn’t match. It was too tall, too square. To say nothing of the massive statues jutting out from the cliffside. 

She hummed to herself and stepped easily over bits of rubble scattered in the road, calling a quick “watch your step,” to the children behind her as she did. _Maybe I’ve given them too little credit,_ they did, after all, apparently possess ‘magic.’ If that’s the case then it would be trivial to carve through a cliffside; as easy and efficient as a mining rig back home. 

“What’s that, El?” Tamar’s voice carried to her ears easily, bouncing off the rocks and playing at the edge of her frustration. The toddler had only stopped asking questions to eat, and even then only at the insistence of her sister. Now they were plodding through dangerous territory - Ellena had told her as much - and the child kept distracting Six’s only other pair of eyes and giving away their position. 

“Looks like it used to be a toll booth maybe,” Ellena’s tone grew a hint excited, “maybe from the time of Magisters!”

A quick breath pushed the frustration back to the edge of her mind, “eyes front and searching.” Her tone was curt, though the breath had kept it from being sharp. “Quietly.”

She didn’t turn her head to see if they responded, satisfied with the quick silence that followed her words. Her attention turned wholly toward their surroundings, scanning each boulder and crevice and shrub. Being out of her armor had her on edge, being in such a consistently disadvantageous position had her hyper aware of everything around them. 

With a sheer dropoff on the right and wonderful cover all on their left they were painfully exposed. Worse, it seemed to go on for kilometers, maybe all the way into the city. Certainly as far as she could see before the fog from the ocean became too thick. 

Which meant there was no way to go but forward, and nothing to do but hope that, if they took contact, the kids were smart enough to leap behind cover and stay there. 

Which meant - movement high in the rocks on her left had her freezing to squint at it, one hand locked around the knife on her thigh and her other on the sword at her hip. Behind her was the soft sounds of one of the kids walking into the other. She heard their intake of breath and loosed a ‘shush’ at them in response. 

Something tugged on the fabric of her clothes, but her attention didn’t waver from the rocks. “What is it?” Ellena. Close. Too close. 

The hand on her longsword loosened just enough to give the girl a sharp nudge backward before it returned to the hilt. “Movement,” she replied, “in the rocks on our left. Take your sister and get back to -”

“Hail, traveller!” All their heads snapped up and forward, to a man cresting the rise in the road before them with an easy gait. Two axes jingled at his side and old leather armor that looked cured by the seaspray itself greedily lapped up the sun that struck his chest. His hair was greasy, and his smile was predatory.

He was ten meters from them when her blades hissed out their sheaths to rest in a ready position in front of her. “No closer,” she barked, in as close an imitation of Mendez’s drill voice as she could.

The man stopped on the spot, but he didn’t blink, and his smile didn’t waver. “Wonderful weather today, isn’t it?”

“No.” The skies were a sad, ugly grey. And fog rolled in off the ocean in great, clinging waves. She hated the feel of it on her skin, it only reminded her how naked she was. 

“Ah, not from around here then, hm? This is positively wonderful weather for this time of year! Why just this morning the sun woke me up before the rain did! That’s rare, that is.”

“Good for you.” She didn’t like it, any of it. There was too much banter here, too much awareness and face to face contact. She was used to just skipping straight to the killing, this whole conversation facade before it just unsettled her. _Bad at it_. 

The man didn’t seem to notice, or maybe he did and that was why his smile grew that little bit. “It is! Woke up knowin’ that today was gonna be a wonderful day, and here you are, proving me right.” Her hands tightened around her blades. “Now -” a step closer to them, then another “- I’ll be as simple and straightforward as I can - Pa always told me folk appreciate honesty in their transactions: give me all your belongings and you can be on your way.”

His foot hit the ground, and thirteen people rose out of the cliffs along with it. All in equally ragged arms and armor, all with a glint to their eyes: either cruel or desperate. The muscles in her jaw tensed, and behind her one of the girls gasped. 

At the very least, they weren’t surrounded. 

A woman, broad and stout and with a massive warhammer on her back strolled up to the greasy man to whisper something in his ear. His smile grew wider and he took another few steps closer. _Five meters_. “Or! A special deal for you, m’lady. Hand us those girls and you can be on your way, no exchange of goods necessary!”

Another step. _Four meters_. Well within her range. _Six high on the left, two bows. Eight on the road. One bow._ A shove behind her might push the girls into cover, at the cost of sending them sprawling. But, if they wanted them alive, then that freed her up tremendously. Her hands tightened and loosened on her blades, the muscles in her legs coiling. 

“It’s a limited time deal! I promise you, m’lady, if we have to come over there and take them ourselves -” he stepped forward once more and her legs launched her forward. 

She covered the three meters between them in a blink, knife vanishing up into the man’s skull. The force of it shoved him backward, her right hand letting go and switching grip to yank it out and launch her into a spin that ended with the longsword cleaving through the stout woman’s shoulder and burying itself in her chest cavity. She left it there, quivering, and charged forward. 

Her shoulder smashed into a leather cuirass, the eyes above it wide with shock and weapon half drawn. A thrust into the throat and another low into the kidneys had him hacking blood across her cheek.

Then the shouts started, the final hisses of weapons being drawn as the group recovered from their shock. A woman on her right screamed as she charged her, only to freeze up when the gurgling, barely conscious man was thrown at her.

Six charged the rest and fell into the comforting rhythm of combat yet again. Sidestep, jab, slash. Twist the person to catch his comrades arrow for her, then dodge low. Hamstring the woman as she rises, then a quick finish with another thrust for the throat. 

It was a beat, a melody. Each clash of steel and grunt, each shout and order. A melody to the tempo of her heartbeat that she embraced wholly. There were no worries of wrong universes and genocides, no niggling purposelessness, there was only action and reaction. The moment that she was in and the moment she could see coming. This was her purpose. This was what she was crafted for.

A laugh, light and short, slithered up her throat and out her mouth. Burst among the bandits like a bomb. Soon all the ones on the road were dead or immobilized and she was bounding up the rocks to finish the job.

She got most of those in the back, chuckling now and again when she did. 

The last archer tripped and fell, faceplanting into a rock and dropping her bow in exchange for her nose. This time her knife-hand held back, letting her left snap out to roll the woman over as she knelt.

Her face was a mess of blood and tears, and she didn’t look at all aware of the fact that Six was kneeling over her. A count of ten, and then her fingers were snapping in the woman’s face to get her attention. 

Slowly, her eyes opened. They were blue, with brown hair peeking out from under the leather of her helmet. “I-I-I… please don’t-”

“Are there others?” Six plowed through the woman’s babbling, voice flat and low. 

The woman beneath just blinked. “Others? Others? I-I don’t- please-”

“More. Are there more of you?”

This time it clicked, she could see it in those pale blue eyes. “No,” she blurted, desperate, “no, no it’s-it’s just us on this road. Callum made sure of it.”

“Good,” Six nodded and slit the woman’s throat. 

She stood and turned easily, mind reluctantly coming back from the post-combat high. Stopping only long enough to clean her blade on the shirt of a corpse, she walked back to where the girls had been hiding.

They hadn’t moved an inch since she left; Ellena still sitting ramrod straight behind the ruins of the toll booth with a silently moving mouth and a hand covering her sister’s eyes. One of those eyes cracked when she neared, opening fully only when it sparked with recognition as Six knelt. “Are they gone?” 

A nod, as gentle as she could make it, that melded into a once-over to make sure neither were harmed. As soon as Ellena had spoken she’d started shaking, and it was only getting worse. “Are you alright?”

“I… yes.” 

“Then let’s move,” she offered her right hand, empty of the knife, and left it there until Ellena took it. With careful force, she pulled the trembling girl onto her feet, and they processed forward, Ellena’s hand still covering the eyes of the silent Tamar. 

Leather scraped against gravel as she stopped, muttering a quick “look away” to Ellena before she leant down and yanked her longsword out of the woman’s chest. Lowering herself just enough to reach the corpse’s shirt, she wiped the blade down and sheathed it. 

“Alright, let’s -”

Voices nipped at the edge of her hearing, and Six snapped around to face the same crest that the greasy man had walked down, one hand shoving the girls back behind the toll booth’s ruins. Steel hissed on leather, and her blades were out and level in her hands for the second time in five minutes. 

Four people sauntered over the hill, weapons drawn and leaning casually on shoulders or in the crooks of arms. A crossbow for the shortest one, a great longsword on a man who looked too lithe to wield it, and two staves that a pair of women held with the same reverence a soldier would their rifle. Her brown eyes narrowed. From what Llewelyn had told her staves usually meant ‘mages.’

Her grip tightened on her blades, one foot sliding back along the dirt as she bent her knees.

The shortest one saw her first, the laugh on his lips fading to a smile. His fingers flexed near the trigger while his eyes scanned the bodies. His change filtered through the others not a second later and gave her another moment to observe them. Where the slavers hadn’t been quite the same, they all bore the colors and aesthetic of the downtrodden and desperate. Nicked weapons and old, worn leather in browns and beiges and greys. These newcomers were a riot of color and life comparatively. 

And their weapons looked to be in much, much better condition. 

Their eyes met, and an unspoken conversation passed between them. It reminded her of Beta back on Onyx. Another moment had the taller woman (though still not breaching six feet) with short black hair and sharp features step forward ahead of the others.

“Morning!” Her hand was half raised in a casual greeting, but Six ignored it to focus on the other hand still holding the staff. 

“Good morning.” 

“We heard combat and came running, though Stubby back there kept us slow,” the stout man behind her squawked, “good to see we reached the dashing maiden in time to help her loot all the corpses.”

Six didn’t respond.

“Ooo, a talkative one I see. That’s okay, I’m used to big, muscly strongfolk that don’t talk. I’ll do it for the both of us. So,” brown eyes watched the woman’s gauntleted hand clench ever so slightly around the haft of her staff. “Care to explain the bodies?”

“They tried to rob me.”

“Went well did it?”

“No.”

The woman hummed, her posture easy but her blue eyes sharp. “You wouldn’t happen to be Qunari, would you?” 

Six blinked, moving her focus to flit back to the three others still stood on the crest of the hill. They hadn’t moved, but their weapons were ever so slightly tighter in their hands. When her gaze moved back to the short haired woman her staff was leant in the crook of her elbow, hands spread wide to mimic a wingspan. 

“Big fellas, ‘bout this wide and about your height. Lots of muscle and just as quiet.”

“Don’t forget the horns,” shouted the lithe woman with pointed ears just like the girls.

“Oh! Right! With horns too. Know them? One of them?”

“I…” horned people? Her size? “No. No, I’m human.”

“Hm.” Short Hair had a hand on her chin now, with her blue eyes narrowed. The lithe woman in the back shot forward to be halfway between her and Short Hair. When she stopped she was bouncing and Six’s teeth were grinding.

“You’re quite large for a human, did you know? Oh! Was that rude?”

“I’m sure you’re fine, Daisy,” the stouter man had almost shouldered his crossbow, but his saunter toward them - trailed by the thinner man with the massive sword - oozed confidence. “Though I’ve never seen a human with your features before,” his eyes narrowed ever so slightly. “Where’d you say you were from?”

“I didn’t.” 

“Ah, that’s right,” the man said, but she couldn’t tell how authentic it was. She never could with people. “Where are you from?”

Frustration simmered at the edge of her mind. “Far away,” she ground out.

“Not Orelesian,” Short Hair tossed out, head tilted at her like she was some particularly interesting stain on a tablecloth. “Not Ferelden either.”

“Nor Tevene or Seheran,” her eyes snapped to the thin man who _also_ had pointed ears. His voice was gravel and a scowl marred his face. 

“Rivain’s out too,” commented the shortest. 

“Not an elf either!” three pairs of eyes and raised brows meandered to the other staff wielder. “In case… any of you were curious.”

“Thank you, Merril -”

“You’re welcome!”

“- so, Anderfels then?”

“No,” Six grit out, knuckles white around her blades. She wouldn’t kill them unless they gave her a reason, they were _really_ searching for one. 

“Oh!” The woman - Merrill - leapt forward again, but all Six saw was the hand on her staff. 

Her knife hand snapped out, stopping the woman in her tracks when the point rested neatly on her sternum. “No closer.”

Instantly every single person had their weapons out and pointed at her. Short hair’s staff glowed like the barrel of a plasma rifle, and that almost set her off then and there. Beside her, the svelte man was lit up like a skyscraper. “That wasn’t very -”

A whimper from behind Six cut Short Hair off, her blue eyes flickering to the toll booth’s ruins. “Come out!” 

Frustration turned to anger and maybe, maybe, they would give her that reason after all. 

Ellena and Tamar inched from behind the stone, Tamar’s face buried in Ellena’s thigh and curtained with long, curly hair. The pair were silent, but she could see the tremor in Ellena’s hands. 

“What are you doing with them?” The white haired man’s voice was a snarl, his scowl deepened and looked almost carved from stone. “Where are their parents?”

“Gone. I’m escorting them to the Chantry Orphanage in Kirkwall,” she growled, rocking back and forth ever so slightly on her heels. Her longsword glowed blue in their light.

“Or to a slaver’s cage,” White Hair groused. The greatsword almost shook in his grip. 

“Easy, Fenris, we don’t know for sure that the nice lady covered in blood isn’t telling the truth.” Those blue eyes turned back to her. “Are you?”

Six’s mouth opened, but the voice that came wasn’t hers. 

“She is!” Ellena’s tenor was trembling like a leaf in a storm, but at the very least it was there. “Ueda-she-she’s been taking care of us since…” a deep, shaking breath, that steadied when Ellena’s eyes met hers. “She’s telling the truth.”

Each of the group, Fenris, Merrill, and the short man looked to - “what do you think, Hawke?”

“She could be lying to them,” Fenris hissed, but the snarl on his face had lessened to an only slightly deeper scowl than he started with. She couldn’t read them. Couldn’t read any of them. It ate at her. 

Instead she turned her eyes to the leader, Hawke. Narrowed blue eyes that picked her apart and put her back together like an old puzzle and one hand still cupping her chin. The woman snapped her fingers and Six almost lashed out to slit her throat. 

“How would you like an escort, madam?” 

She felt more than anything the frown that split her face. “An escort?” 

“Yes! The Wounded Coast is - as you’ve seen - a very dangerous place. Now you seem to be the dangerous type too, but, then again, so are we. All of us together would make this trip much, much easier on you.”

The woman was smiling one of those smiles that made Six want to punch something. It wasn’t a mean smile, but it was a taunting smile, a smile that said there was something funny here that she couldn’t see. Usually it was at her expense. 

“I’ll be fine on my own.”

“ _Y_ _ou_ will, but will they? What happens if you run into a mage like Merrill and I? What happens if you get some archers that try to kill the kids first and not you? What happens if you take the wrong path onto unsure ground and fall, screaming, to your very pretty death?”

Her teeth were grinding now. 

“They’re safer with all of us together, and that should matter more to you than pride.”

The muscles in her jaw leapt, and something was pounding in her head and screaming but… but Hawke made sense. She had been relying on stealth and luck - two things the girls were sorely lacking in - to get them through. This way they’d be much, much safer.

_And_ , she reasoned, _if they try anything…_ well, she’d just need to target the ‘mages’ first. 

“Fine,” she flipped her knife away from Merrill and sheathed it, taking a moment longer to do the same with her longsword. “Stay ten meters ahead of me at all times.”

If Hawke was thrown by this then she didn’t show it, merely smiled that irritating smile and gave her a mocking bow. Hawke turned and walked away, the shorter man and Merrill following suit. Fenris lingered long enough to step close to her, close enough to have her hands hovering on the hilts of her blades. “Make no mistake, if you are lying then I _will_ kill you.”

His eyes were green, and she held them. “No,” she replied, “you won’t.”

* * *

Relative silence ruled the rest of the walk to Kirkwall. The four ahead of them - Hawke in particular - kept tossing jabs and conversation starters their way, only for Six to let them fall face first on the ground like a suicidal stockbroker. 

Tamar broke the silence when the gates of Kirkall loomed close, flanked on either sides by statues of shackled, weeping people. They were so dark they looked almost cast iron, and the little girl’s curiosity smashed her fear from that point onward. After a quick stop at the main gate out of the Gallows - _certainly an_ interesting _name choice_ \- that Hawke handled with choice, inaudible words, they were off. 

Lowtown and the Docks, it turned out, were far below her expectations. The only difference was the material of the city: all beige stone and barely any wood in sight. Besides that, Kirkwall seemed more downtrodden and morbid than even she expected. With skies tainted by belching foundries and streets that absolutely _reeked_.

For fuck’s sake, there were even _spikes_ lining many of the walls.

Still though, Tamar and Ellena were nothing but impressed and talkative - _easy to do,_ she supposed, _when this was the highest point of civilization one had experienced_ \- and that only grew as they made the ascent into Hightown.

Quite literally cut from a different block, the difference was night and day. Where Lowtown had been beige and fetid and claustrophobic (something she was surprised she could still feel after so much time on starships) Hightown was all polished marble and open spaces. It was a different city. 

And then there was the Chantry, the second highest point in the city after the palace. It was a cathedral out of an ancient Earth, all stained glass and incense and reverant spectacle. It took barely a moment for a sister - the clergy seemed to be woman dominated - to find them, and only the briefest conversation after to clarify why she was there.

The woman dressed in rose and white led them through winding corridors and low steps lit only by candles and torches. Open flames, it turned out, still made Six somewhat uncomfortable.

Finally, with Hawke’s company tailing them, they reached the orphanage. Cut from the mountain that bore foundation to the Chantry with carved slits inlaid with glass serving as windows, the complex was massive, and had nothing but silence to fill it. In fact, just the conversation to get the kids sorted and in the ‘system’ (it was a book) felt distinctly disruptive. 

From there a new Sister, much older than the last, led the three of them through more winding pathways to a spartan room with two beds and a thick, oaken door. 

“Five minutes,” the matron said, and then vanished into the halls. 

Six watched her go, and when she turned back to the kids she could acutely feel her lack of helmet. She felt bare. Exposed.

She hated it. 

“Thank you,” Ellena said, arms going to hug her until she spied the tenseness in Six’s legs. They fell awkwardly at her sides, fingers beginning to fiddle with the hem of her shirt. 

She tried to think of something, anything to say. But… nothing seemed quite right. It’s what she did, it was her duty, yet the words caught in her mouth like clay and wouldn’t dislodge. Six owed them something though, some words. 

A short nod and an even shorter “you’re welcome.”

Another silence, punctuated by Ellena's green eyes flitting down to the ground, up to her, then down the hallway to repeat it all again. “You’ll… are you planning to stay? In Kirkwall?”

“If I -” the words were sour in her mind and tasted even sourer on her tongue. “If I can find _work_ , yes.”

For the first time since their trip started, Ellena’s eyes met hers and held them. Studied her. Then a small grin bloomed on her face, “I don’t think that’ll be too hard for you,” and, with a wave that Tamar mimicked, the pair shuffled into the room and closed the door. Their “see you soon,” still echoing down the halls. 

Six lingered, staring at it a little longer as something roiled in her chest. With a frown, she settled it, and made her way back to the Chantry. 

She was still frowning when she emerged into the sanctum of the Chantry, and it only deepened when she spied Hawke and the dwarf - that was apparently what he was - break off from a conversation with a sister and make for her. 

“Ueda!” Hawke called, as if there was some way to miss the mage in the quiet and nearly empty room, “Ueda!” A second flinch ran up the muscles of her perfectly straightened back. 

And then Hawke was in front of her, hair mussed from the seaspray and an annoying smile on her face. “I wanted to speak with you.

“Obviously.”

“Oh _now_ she gets a sense of humor!” Hawke’s grin grew even wider and it took monumental effort to keep her eye from twitching. “You see, I had a question -”

“Do you have a job?” the dwarf cut in, and Six relished in the petulant frown that stole Hawke’s twinkle. 

“No."

“A home?”

“No.”

“Are you looking for one? Both? Either?” Hawke’s smile was back, and her shoulder was leant casually on the wall of the Chantry, right on the face of what was probably some sort of saint.

“Both, yes.” She scanned the man and woman in front of her again skeptically, “why?”

“I know a guy who would love to have someone of your stature as a bouncer,” the dwarf filled with a winning smile. A smile that reminded her of home. “If you’re interested.” 

Brown eyes stared at the man, then back up at the woman, and back to the man. Hawke and her friends- but mostly Hawke - were annoying. But... they seemed like good people. Or near enough. That impression was worth the same as the dirt she’d walked in on, but still. It was better than no impression and a cold start. 

Six frowned and turned the words over again in her mind. All of this was still far too new and far too much. 

Finally, her eyes slipped away from the massive bronze statue and toward the smaller man. If she didn’t like it then she could always leave. “I’m listening.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally! The prologue arc is over and we’re in Kirkwall with the DA2 crew! Let me know how y’all think I did with them in this chapter, they’re a ton of fun to write, but sometimes I worry I might be adding too much personal influence to the characters.
> 
> That said, I do want to offer a small apology on the quality of this chapter. This was the very first chapter of this fic that I wrote, and the first thing I’d written in a few months. You can probably tell, as I didn’t have too much a grip on Six’s character or my own style + grammar that I feel I have now. I’ve gone back and edited a fair bit, but the skeleton is, of course, the same, and there may be problems with that. 
> 
> That said I hope y’alls weeks are going well! New Year is right around the corner, and that’s a bit crazy to think about. This year really has been something else, hasn’t it? 
> 
> Also, as a heads up, I don’t think I’ll be able to post chapters the 23rd and 30th (the two weeks after next) as I’ll just be too busy with driving and family. I’m really, really sorry about that, but it’s just the way things have fallen this year. Hopefully I’ll be able to take some breaks and further my written chapter buffer during that period. Cold Light of Day’s chapters aren’t too long, so I can get ahead on them pretty easily. 
> 
> See y’all next Wednesday!


	5. Anger Management

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Six tries to find some medicine.

Spartan Sierra Beta Three-twelve leant against the wall of the Bloated Noble and counted the figures roaming the docks. She was patient, but lately it had been getting harder and harder to wait and watch without stimulation. Restless. Angry. Emotions and impulses streaming through her brain like shooting stars, there for a moment then gone again. Each day they strained more and more against the tight leash she kept wrapped around their necks.

The endless variety of people wandering the docks and filtering through the door of the dingy pub at least provided a constant distraction. It had been a week and a half since she started, but already the patterns were filtering through. Even with the… distractions her brain was providing. 

During the day the docks were absolutely vibrating with activity. It was no New Alexandria or Mombasa spaceport - nothing on this planet probably was - but it was still packed and bustling and loud. With the official business streaming in during the day from all over the continent - _Thedas,_ she remembered - and all the nobles, wealthy merchants, cargo cogs, and travellers, the Docks had an almost egalitarian air. Melting pot, as it were. Everyone who had business came down, and almost everyone had business. 

Docks commerce didn’t die at night, just got quieter. Dirtier. The people got rougher and were always armed. Frankly, it was more familiar. Underground arms deals, information exchanges, gang activity - the threats that came with those put her much more at ease than the official commerce; it had a habit of leaving her aimless and gaping like a lost child in a mall. 

Night brought the drunken sailors and failed arms deals as well. Gave her something to do in the way of a fight - if roughing up drunks and breaking up bar brawls could be called a fight. 

Knuckles whitened the slightest bit around her bicep, and she glared off at the setting sun. _Pathetic. Worthless._ Here she was, a Spartan III, playing bouncer outside a rundown bar and brothel combo. 

Heat flared in her chest, snapped to a roar of rage that filled her mind for a few seconds before dying to an empty, painful longing. A deep sadness. Her eyes found her palm, watched it open and close. Open. Close.

It still felt wrong to see her flesh.

“Getting worse,” she mumbled, managing to catch another spike of frustration before it flared into rage. Buried it deep. 

Objectively, she knew what it was, though it had been a long time since she’d felt it this bad. The side effects of her augmentations beating against the walls of her brain. Bipolar Disorder. Intermittent Explosive Disorder. 

Official names and classifications that only somewhat fit. 

How long had it been since she’d had her dose? Reach’s fall had been a month, and she’d been here for what? Six weeks? Seven?

_You died too,_ a voice whispered in her mind, _does that make it better or worse?_

A quick shake of the head, and her eyes slipped back up to watch the sky turn a rich, burnished orange. The water caught the glow and her whole body tensed. It looked like it was on fire. 

“Hey! Hey, honey, you there?” She didn’t jump, but she did flinch. “You listening to me?”

It was one man - boy really - at the head of a group of ragged, dirty people. Sailors or dealers or sellers. Didn’t matter. “Sorry. Yes. What is it?”

He grumble-slurred something unintelligible. Something unpleasant. A quick spike of frustration teased the base of her spine. “I was _askin_ ’ if this place is _open_.” His words were slow and deliberate. Mocking. Had to be. “Get me this time?”

  
  
“The Bloated Noble is open until third-bell past midnight,” she recited the information as neutrally as possible. The way his face twitched and his small eyes narrowed set her teeth clenching. _Calm down_ , she chided herself, but the frustration wouldn’t leave. 

It burnt a hole in her back when he laughed at her. 

“You sound like a tranquil! Or one o’ them whassitcalled,” one dirty hand slapped the friend on his right, “Quin-airee?” His buddies laughed behind him, and that anger slipped all the ways she could kill them into her mind. Played them on loop and had her hands twitching under her arms. 

“I am neither,” she stated, wrestling with the rage that niggled the back of her mind and voice. “But you are testing your welcome.” Were they? Or was that a slip of rage and boredom speaking? It was… hard to tell, and that scared her slightly. 

“Oh-ho-oh! Hear that, you lot? We’re testin’ our welcome at this -” he gave her a nasty grin and spread his arms wide “- _fine_ establishment!” A step closer, and when he leant in she could smell the alcohol on his breath from two feet below her nose. “I’ll tell you what, _Tranquil_ , you just -” 

He poked her, and she snatched him up one handed and slammed him against the wall. His eyes were wide and blinking, mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. 

“I repeat,” she bit out, and tried to ignore the impulse to smash him against the wall again and again until his spine snapped. It was very, _very_ hard. “I am _not_ a Tranquil, and _you_ are not welcome.”

He blinked at her, and she hurled him out into the street. His body skipped twice over the packed dirt before skidding to a halt against a stack of crates and barrels. She doubted he was alright, and that thought had her almost smiling as she rounded on his friends. “Leave,” she growled, and they did, stopping only long enough to make sure their buddy could walk. 

As soon as they were out of eyesight the rage snapped to hollowness. Shame. _Pathetic, some drunks mock you and you hardly keep yourself from killing them?_ A jagged sigh slipped her lips while a hand ran through her hair. Mendez would have her head for its length; Mendez would have her head for losing control like that. If the Lieutenant didn’t get to her first.

Brown eyes turned to the sky and the water, both painted the color of wine with the sun gone and the moon out. 

This couldn’t go on. The fact that it had reached this point already was a disgrace. _But how to treat it?_ She knew the name of the drugs they’d used to keep her in check in between deployments, but that meant nothing here.

  
  
Though… with magic…

Would there be a spell? Barring that, some potion or concoction that might have similar effects as the drugs? Or was that too much to hope for?

Her eyes settled on the gently rippling reflection of the moon, and she decided it didn’t quite matter if it was. Something had to be done.

* * *

“Ten gold per dose.”

Six felt a frown forming on her face. “That seems extravagant.”

Lady Elegant - a silly name - rolled her eyes. “It always does to those unfamiliar with the intricacies of potion making. You think I just wave my hand, toss a few leaves in a pot of water, and it’s done?”

This time the frown did form. That was exactly what Six had expected, and based off the slight glower Elegant threw her way, the woman could tell. “Alright then, let’s break down your ask. A mood control potion is complicated to begin with, but you want something more specific and targeted than that. We’d be stuck trialing recipe after recipe for weeks - especially since concoctions like that take days to brew - and once we did find something that suits your needs we’d be trialing it for another few weeks until we found a good dosage.” Elegant shook her head, ginger waves of hair shaking as she did. “Honestly? Ten gold is a bargain for what you’re asking.”

Six’s eyes narrowed at the woman. It was just… she _couldn’t tell_ if the woman was lying. She’d never _needed_ to deal with people outside of scattered fireteams and Colonel Bak. Just kill them. Browsing? Bartering? Reading people? She had no idea what she was fucking doing, and it brewed in her gut with frustration and embarrassment.

“I can’t afford that.” She could barely afford _rent_ and it was a tenth of what the merchant was asking for. Another thing to throw onto the pyre of her frustration. The flame was getting dangerously high, though that wasn’t saying much lately. “But I could pay with muscle.” An awkward pause, “if that’s something you need.”

“You’re a dashing woman,” Elegant said with a smile that even she could see was _laced_ with pity, “but I’m afraid I don’t need someone like you here or… elsewhere.”

“I see,” it was a fight to keep the anger out of her voice, and it came out tight. “Thank you for your time.” 

“Wait,” Elegant sighed, and Six obeyed. “I run a business, not a charity, but there’s a man in Darktown who might be able to help you. A healer. He does things like this for free.” Elegant’s face downturned as she huffed, “don’t expect quality work, but any work is better than none.”

This time her lips quirked up instead of down, and the fire in her breast dimmed a bit. “I’ll look into it. Thank you,” she said, and actually meant it this time. 

“Yeah, yeah. Go on, tell him I say hello.” And then Elegant was turned around, hunched over some brewing potion and glaring. 

Her legs beat a steady rhythm into the dirt as she marched. A healer in Darktown. It wasn’t treatment, not yet, but it was a clear goal.

* * *

Darktown wasn’t quite hard to find, but it wasn’t easy either. There was no main road or wide substreet that led into the cliffs that housed it, only a mess of sprawling, winding alleys where, at some point, the stone walls of buildings became the stone walls of mountain and the light faded away. 

Oddly, if it wasn’t for the fetid smell, the squalor, and the people it would’ve been almost cozy. The cramped walls and dim lights reminded her incessantly of UNSC ships and FOBs. About as close to familiar as she could imagine this world got. 

The people too were familiar. Not physically - outside of being human - but in the persistent, profound air of defeat and loss. They reminded her of days spent huddled in refugee camps after Jericho and before Onyx; they reminded her of evac’d civilians hiding in the nooks and crannies of starships, shaking.

They reminded her of home. And that set her on edge.

She could feel their eyes on her as she walked, though whether that was as a target or a curiosity she didn’t know. That was one of the worst parts of living in Kirkwall. Where before eyes on her had always been a threat, here people watched her as she walked simply because of her size and features. There was no one else in the city like her, and she hated it. Her body didn’t know what to do with it, and she’d barely left her dreary little hut because of it. 

If her body reacted before her mind caught up she could kill someone. Easily. 

Her grip was tight around her blades the whole way through Darktown, and her eyes were flickering from person to person. Waiting. When she finally reached the lone lantern she walked backward up to it, hands on her blades and eyes out and watching the three empty entrances hewn from the mountain.

Hips met the wood of the door and she knocked. Waited. 

Voices trickled in from the other side of the wood, one man and one woman. A count of thirty and she knocked again. One heartbeat, then two, and the door behind her flew open. 

“Fine, fine! Some friend you are -” it was a woman, dark skinned, covered with gold, and dressed minimally. 

And the woman was staring at her. “Well hello there, lovely,” gold tinkled as she sauntered up to her, eyes half lidded and flickering up and down her body. _For a weapon, maybe?_ The woman stopped, leant against the doorframe just barely outside of Six’s space. “What’s your name?”

“Isabela?” A blond head poked out of the doorway, glancing left then right. “Isabela are you -” and settled on them. “Oh.”

The woman - Isabela presumably - didn’t acknowledge him, eyes hyperfocused on Three-twelve’s arms and hips.

“I’m looking for a healer,” Six settled on, forcing her eyes off the dark woman with the twin blades who oozed capability. 

“That your full name?” Brown eyes flitted to hazel and the woman winked at her, tongue flashing over her lips. 

“No,” Three-Twelve answered, arms locked at her side in confusion. The tenseness from her walk through Darktown was still there, but it was buried now. Almost forgotten. “I… hm.”

“Tongue tied, hm? That’s okay, I -” Isabela took a step forward into Three-Twelve’s space, close enough to feel the heat from her breath. Instantly, the hyperawareness came rushing back through her mind, sharpening everything. Her whole body locked up, her hands tightening around leather. “Are you alright?”

“No closer, ma’am.” 

Isabela, thankfully, listened, and took a full two steps back, face contrite. “Sorry, I-sorry.”

“Yes, I’m sure you’re very torn up, Izzy,” drawled the blond head still poking out of the doorway, “now, you said you were looking for a healer? How bad is it?”

_Bad_ , she thought. “Not critical,” she answered, ignoring the niggling fear that she was losing control of her mind and body. “I need medication to help with…” how should she phrase it? The diagnosis names would mean nothing to them. “With mental stability.”

The blond’s brows knit together as he muttered something under his breath; Isabela gave her a look she couldn’t interpret, but she knew she didn’t like. “Who sent you?”

“Lady Elegant. Her solution was too expensive, so she sent me here.” Her hands loosened their grip to rest lightly at her sides. “She says hello.”

Blond stared at her a moment longer, eyes searching her face. “Alright. Come in and I’ll see what I can do.”

The head disappeared a moment later, and it was just Isabela. The woman’s eyes had resumed their roaming of her form, but it seemed… _less_ in a way Six couldn’t quite place. “Don’t let me keep you waiting, handsome.” Isabela’s eyes stopped and met hers, “or do, I don’t mind.” 

Her mouth opened to respond, closed when nothing came, then opened again to utter a curt “ma’am,” as she brushed past her and into the clinic. 

Clinic though, was a generous word. It was a large rectangular slab cut from the cliffside and scattered with old support columns and rickety cots. On her right the wall was left entirely open to the air, so much so that she could hear and smell the ocean far below. The fabric of the cots was stained and torn, the medical supplies so scattered and haphazard it looked like a bomb had blown them across the room. 

“Yes, yes, I know it’s not the pinnacle of Hightown medicine,” the blond man said, in between gathering supplies. “Sit there, please. I’m Anders by the way.”

She obeyed, following his finger to a cot that looked larger and slightly more stable than the others. “Would you mind describing your, ah, condition?”

Brown eyes moved to Isabela, still leant on the doorframe and watching her. After a moment Anders paused his gathering to follow her gaze. “Ah. You can trust Isabela, she’s a good friend of mine. We… work together, for lack of a better word.”

Six’s gaze lingered on the woman long enough for her to wink again before turning back to Anders. “It consists of mood swings - usually rage and depression,” her voice was clinical and detached, reciting the remembered descriptions. “Joy, rarely. Anger growth and outbursts disproportionate to given stimuli, greatly increased general aggression, impulsiveness, and difficulty thinking through consequences.”

Anders frowned in his seat across from her. “That’s a very… well memorized description.”

“I’ve had it a long time.”

Blond hair bounced as the man nodded, “what were your previous treatments like?”

Her mouth opened, ready to dive into the names of her medications, their dosages, and descriptions before she froze. This would need to be in a form that Anders would understand. “Tinctures, tonics, and potions that regulated aggression and my… emotional capability.”

“That’s -” her eyes snapped to Isabela “- a bit… cruel, isn’t it? Restricting emotions like that?”

  
  
Shoulders brushed her neck in a shrug. She might mention that it was worse feeling like a slave to your emotions and aggression with no control over either, but instead she said “no.”

Isabela didn’t look convinced. 

“Well, I’ll see what I can do. It might take a bit to obtain the necessary ingredients to make something that can _truly_ help - and longer to find a strength that works - but I think I can handle it. Maybe.” The man rose and moved to the corner of the room to shuffle through a cabinet. “In the meantime I’ll give you something for emergencies. A calmer that should settle you. Be careful though, it is _strong_.” And with that he popped out of the cabinet and placed a vial of thick, orange liquid in her hand. “Be sure to come back soon, it shouldn’t be too long and _that_ ,” he tapped the vial, “is _not_ a permanent solution.”

She held his gaze and nodded, slipping the vial into a pocket as she did. “Thank you for your help.”

“Ooo,” Isabela sidled up to the column closest to her, “is this the part where I get to walk you home?” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another older chapter, but I think I’m a bit happier with Six in this one than in the last. As we go on I’ll get a better hang of her character, but these older chapters require a bit more editing/touching up to make sure she remains consistent with other content. 
> 
> Plus a bit of a glimpse into Six’s mental health (spoiler: it’s bad) directly related to her augmentations. Technically speaking, the Spartan III’s don’t have specific mental illnesses like Bipolar Disorder or IED, just this nebulous hyper-aggressive, hyper-competitive, bad-at-thinking-about-long-term-consequences headspace aggravated by their augmentations. Like everything about teenagers, but… more? I guess? Anyway, I thought that was kinda lame, so I’ve added onto it a bit/gave it a bit more of a clear and pronounced effect on Six’s mindset. The dosage to regulate the side effects is a canon thing though, Spartan III augmentations inhibit their brain’s ability to produce certain chemicals and their bodies’ ability to regulate stuff because the III’s augmentations were shittier “just get it done” versions of the II’s. Plus no regards for long term impact on quality of life since none of them were expected to live past twenty anyway. UNSC sucks dick y’all. ONI bad.
> 
> Another point of clarification that I thought I’d throw in here (it’ll come up in the story, just not for a while and this may help your mental image of Six) Six is asian with asian features. Probably already a bit obvious with the black hair, brown eyes, and the mention that she’s the only one who looks like she does that people have seen. Thedas got a lot of folk, but apparently not Asian folk. Granted, Asian isn’t a perfect analog for Six’s heritage - she is, after all, a colony kid - but still. 
> 
> Anyway, that’s all for today! Hope y’all enjoyed the chapter and our first little taste of Six’s daily life in Kirkwall! As a reminder I am NOT POSTING CHAPTERS next week or the week after. That would be the 23rd and 30th for this story. Again, sorry about that, but it’s just the way things worked out this year. 
> 
> Stay safe, Happy Holidays, and I’ll see y’all in 2021!


	6. It's a Date

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Six meets a stranger, takes a beating, and (reluctantly) pays Anders a visit.

Six preferred night shifts. Not only did they pay more, but they gave her more to do. The most she got during the day were drunks that needed some rough handling or a barfight that needed breaking up.

_During the night though_ , Six eased back against the wall and let her eyes roam the deceptively empty docks, _during the night things got more exciting_. Officially, the Bloated Noble closed at three bells after midnight and she went on home. Unofficially, the Bloated Noble was open for business as a go-to deal making spot for night activity across the Docks.

A group of people sidled out of the alley across from her, chain and scalemail glittering dully in the moonlight. Their weapons were sheathed, so a nod sent them through the door. Sound drifted out of it as it opened, a soft static of murmured words and too-loud music to cover it. The last one, an elven woman with coffee colored hair and a staff, gave her a brief nod before the door slammed closed and the churning lull of the waves came drifting back. 

It was pleasant. Relaxing. A gentle background noise that she could focus on to pass the time and help her not think too much. The tide came in and she watched the boats bob and list and creak, the occasional crack against Kirkwall’s stone docks the only punctuation to their movements. Then it was back to the alleyways and streets, watching the ocean breeze stir up the packed dirt and dust lining the roads into little vortexes that were only visible when they passed between shadows. 

Her knife found its way out of her sheath without much thought, the other hand moving deftly to pour some canteen water over the steel before nabbing her whetstone. The blade was already sharp, but it always paid to make it sharper. It didn’t hurt that it gave her hands something to do either. 

The stone’s trip down the blade was smooth, barely a bump or a nick. A quick adjustment of her wrist and it slid down the other side just as easy, hissing while it did. Slide, hiss, flip, repeat. An easy rhythm that assuaged the anxiety building in her chest; the anxiety that always came with standing still for too long. It had been getting worse lately though, matched only by the ebb and flow of an incoherent anger that came and went like the tide. 

She still hadn’t used Anders’ emergency concoction.

Slide, hiss, flip, repeat. 

A boot thudded on the dirt off to her left, and her head rose to meet it. Another group of elves and humans - this one mostly colored with red and black - flowed into the road, ignoring the alleyways around them. She watched their movements, counting their strides with the awareness that her hands didn’t occupy, until they halted inches from the door. 

An elven woman was at the head, a staff on her back and auburn hair pulled in a ruthless, military style bun that Six had seen a hundred thousand times before. She had green eyes, and a perfectly still form.

Six cocked her head. “Looking for something, ma’am?”

“This is the Bloated Noble?” Somehow, the woman only moved her mouth, the rest of her face utterly placid. 

“It is.”

“Good,” the woman droned, and stared blankly at the wood. The people behind her, Six noticed, were equally as still. 

The whetstone sped up a fraction. 

“Weapons stay sheathed,” she ordered, nodding at the staff on the mage’s back. “At all times.”

Green eyes slid off the door and up her to her brown. They… undulated, and, for a fleeting moment, she swore she saw a flash of red in them.

Her hands stopped their movements, and something wet slid up her spine. 

“I’ll keep that in mind,” the woman said, with the distinct air of someone who wouldn’t.

One slim hand clad all the way in leather slid to the door and pushed. Six did not stop her. 

The too-loud music and aimless murmurs slipped back out into the street, bouncing for one second, then two. It died on the third, with the fourth and final member of their group. 

Six gave it a count of twenty, then followed them in, hands on her weapons. 

The interior of the Bloated Noble was every bit as attractive as the name promised. Half bar and half brothel, it stank of salt and what she had learned was stale beer and sex. Faded paint clung to the walls in sparse patches, bare stone stained with woodsmoke dominated the rest. A tune still carried through the sizable room, the young singer on the stage shunted into the corner and refusing to acknowledge the silence that had enveloped the bar.

And there, staff drawn and motionless at the center of the room, was the reason. Three-twelve advanced through the crowd, shouldering patrons too focused on the confrontation to notice her out of the way. 

She was ten meters away when she heard the whispering, five when it grew to a mutter and she was able to make out the hunched, fearful man at the table behind the elf. Only two when she could finally understand them. 

“- your fault. If you hadn’t given us away -”

“I didn’t have a choice,” hissed the man at the table, one shaking hand slipping beneath the discolored grain. “You were being too obvious. It was only a matter of time until the Templars caught you, and I’ve got a family to think about.”

“A family with another mage,” the elf’s voice caught, the first emotion she’d heard from her that night. 

The man didn’t answer, only stared at the table in front of him. 

“At least you won’t have to worry about them -”

Six’s gauntleted hand landed on the woman’s shoulder, enveloping it. All five in the group turned to look at her as one. Synchronized down to the microsecond. “Weapons are to remain sheathed. Remember?”

A sickly smile inched across the elf’s face. Her mouth reeked of copper, and she had maggots instead of teeth. “Of course, my mistake,” the woman leered, and blasted her across the room. 

The music, she was distantly aware, had stopped. 

Her back slammed into the wall and the breath burst from her lungs. Screaming. She could hear screaming and-and-

She could _feel_ maggots writhing in her brain. 

One hand groped aimlessly to her right, grabbing for something - _anything_ \- that could support her weight and get these fucking bugs out her head. They slithered just beneath the skin, wriggling their way out from thoughts of red eyes and an empty smile.

A hiss, just barely audible beneath the screaming and the writhing, had her lurching right. White hot pain bloomed across her left shoulder and she grunted. 

Metal and leather scraped across the floor in a roll, training and muscle memory kicking in to keep her moving. Something crashedinto the wall behind her, bursting with a sound like breaking glass and filling the room with cold. One breath and a blink, but the maggots stayed splayed across her vision. Her eyes screwed shut and she leant into the pain that arced across her shoulder, let it fill her thoughts and drown out the screaming and the red. 

A beige wall coated with frost greeted her. 

Screaming still dominated the air, contested only by a twisted, echoing laugh that slid up her spine and roused thoughts of Jericho and glassings. A quick shake of her head and a flick of her wrists and her blades were drawn. One final deep breath to shove the memories from her mind, and then she launched herself out from the cover of her overturned table. 

Five hostiles, spread in a loose circle formation around the largest. Three were billowing, hissing shapes of black smoke that slipped around their opponents and slashed wildly. A fourth was a massive hunk of steel and bone, equal her height and wielding a huge greatsword. Fifth and final, at the center of the circle, was an undulating mass of flesh and rot in the vague shape of a woman. It was bent over and cackling, ripping into something on the floor that threw blood and viscera across the room like macabre confetti. 

Six dashed straight for the largest, dodging between two of the hunched wisps of smoke. She was four meters from the mass when it spun to stare at her, bones snapping and popping with each movement. It saw her, laughed, and lunged. 

The flat of her longsword met its claws just barely before they raked across her chest, and the force of the blow almost launched the blade from her grip. Her knife lashed out to counter while she backstepped, slicing a thin line up its forearm that leaked sewage instead of blood. Another slash that she barely dodged, and Six took the overextension to lunge forward.

Her longsword passed through the center of the thing’s chest and didn’t even slow it down. The shock must have shown on her face, because it took a moment to cackle. A moment that saved her life and let her just barely sidestep an overhead that shattered the floor where she’d been. 

An arc of lightning caught the thing in the chest, locking it up and giving Six enough time to glance around the room for the source. There, in the corner of the stage, was the elven woman who’d nodded to her barely thirty minutes ago. “Get it the Void out of here!”

The mage slammed her staff into the ground and a hunk of earth burst up and rocketed at the abomination, but the massive swordsman was able to split it in half before it struck home. 

A hiss of air and she spun left, a razor sharp claw of bone gouging the floor. “No weapons, Jiah! See?!” Another slice that she sidestepped before slamming her knife up into the thing’s neck. It turned the laugh to a wheeze, but didn’t stop it. 

The sounds of battle roared all around her, the screams whittled down from constant to intermittent, but she couldn’t take her eyes off the writhing mass of rotten flesh. For the first time since arriving, Six had to focus every ounce of her concentration on staying alive. There was barely any thought, only a hasty strategy to keep it occupied on her through quick, annoying counters while she backpedaled across the bar and toward the door. 

It became a tempo: sidestep, sidestep, slash, backstep, dodge, stab. A beat that she followed all the way until the fucking thing got wise and blasted her with magic. It was on the downbeat, right as her heel hit the first bit of pavement across from what had been the doorframe. It’s downward slash morphed into a snap, fingers like spider legs crackling with power that lanced out in an instant and burst upon her breastplate. 

For the second time that night, Six was airborne - this time trailing smoke. For the second time that night, her back gave a stone wall a handshake and the air was ripped from her chest. The gasping didn’t stop her from rolling left and lurching to her feet, but it had her ears ringing and her balance wobbly. 

A quick breath and a blink cleared most of it, just in time for her to roll out of the way of another burst of magic, then another. On the third she dodged and charged, twisting right to avoid a claw and morphing it into a roundhouse kick that met the things ribs with a wet crackle. The rage in her, growing steadily all fight, screamed in joy when it collided. 

From then on she gave up on the knife as anything but a tool for severing ligaments. Instead she shifted forms to focus on hand-to-hand. 

Sidestep, jab, twist, and kick. Backpedal, uppercut, left hook, shoulder charge. Each strike had the rage growing and squealing, urging her forward with gnashing teeth. She barely noticed how the thing would flinch when she didn’t hit it, or backstep in pain even when she didn’t touch it, or - 

Her boot met the things jaw in an axe kick, followed in quick succession by a pair of slashes to its chest. She was halfway through her followup when a flare of red had her backpedaling. Fire, white hot and hissing, ripped from her left where the door had been and burrowed its way into the things ribcage. It wailed, a twisted, aching note that had her flinching backward and covering her ears. 

It burned for a second, then burst to ash and skittering bugs. 

The street was silent, broken only by her heavy breathing and distant wailing trickling through the shattered doorframe. As the adrenaline faded pain began to arc its way up her left shoulder with every ripple of her chest, but even that couldn’t tear away her manic smile. 

Six was _exhilarated._

Elation wormed its way up her throat, growing with every bug she watched skitter into the alleyways until, finally, it burst out in a guffaw. 

It was short, only a few breaths, but it was the happiest she’d been since she got here. It was everything she wanted. 

“You okay there?”  
  


The voice was on her left, tingling some memory of annoyance that she couldn’t bring herself to care about. Brown eyes met blue, and even Hawke’s annoying little dwarf couldn’t wipe the smile off her face, no matter how high his eyebrow was raised. 

“Never better,” she answered honestly, just in time for the elation to fade with the tide in her mind to nothing but chest pain and emptiness. “I… huh.”

“Come down from the high?”

“...yes.” Oh this was a bad swing, she felt… almost sick. And the stench wasn’t helping.

“Demons will do that to ya, mess with your head, your emotions.” He paused, eyes flickering down to the pile of ash in the middle of the road then back to her. “First time?”

If she spoke she would vomit, so she merely nodded. 

“Ah, that explains it. Here, how about -” but she was already moving. Trudging back to her hut by the docks, one foot in front of the other. Trying to ignore the images of home that flitted through her mind. 

* * *

Six watched the sunrise shirtless in her bed. Sleep had been tough to come by, and the sleep she did get was filled with cackling insects and refugee camps. Today, at least, she would have the day off and would be checking in again with Anders. 

She wiggled into a set of - by some definition - clean shirt and pants, wincing at every movement. Her scavenged breastplate was dented and melted, and the gambeson underneath wasn’t much better, so she settled with just looping her scabbard belt around her waist and marching out the door. 

The sky was painted orange, purple, and pink when she started, and just orange by the time she arrived at the alleyway, a grimace on her face from her trudge up the stairs through a waking Lowtown.

Her walk through Darktown wasn’t much better, but the pain kept her anxiety and burbling aggression in check. 

Of course, that just had her thinking back to the… the demon, and how easily it had slipped into her mind. How _weak_ she had been. 

By the time she arrived at Anders clinic her grimace had degraded into a scowl.

It deepened when Hawke answered the door. 

“My oh my, Ueda, what a surprise!” Hawke’s taunting grin sharpened, “keep this up and a girl just might get ideas.”

“What are you doing here,” she bit out. She was _not_ in the mood to be mocked by this woman. Not after last night. 

“Oho, someone woke up on the wrong side of the slum this morning.” Then a pause as the woman cocked her head, blue eyes sparkling with mischief at her expense. “Didn’t Anders tell you he and I are friends? Close as a mabari and a Ferelden. And I should know.”

A sigh from behind the black-haired mage and Anders popped up. “I don’t think that line was as good as you thought, Hawke.”

“Impossible,” Hawke said, with all the incredulity of someone told the sky was falling. 

“I don’t know, Hawke, Blondie might have a point. A workshop might help,” Varric’s voice. _Also_ inside the clinic. 

One eye twitched. 

“Workshop my arse,” Hawke grumbled, arms crossed as she leant against the doorframe.

Six’s frustration had turned from burbling to simmering and had her teeth grinding. She started a deep breath on reflex, only to hiss and clutch her chest halfway through.

Hawke instantly pushed off the frame. Distinctly smile-less. “Are you alright?”

“Fine,” Six grunted as she pushed past the pair of mages and into the clinic. Varric welcomed her with a smirk and a wink. “Anyone else I should know about? Maybe someone curled up in the medicine cabinet or hanging off the cliff?”

“Nope,” Hawke said, popping the ‘p.’ Her blue eyes were still locked on the hand Six was holding to her ribs. 

“Just us,” Varric finished.

“Wonderful.”

“Forget about them, Ueda -”

“Don’t call me that,” the words leapt out without thought, born from a worn, tired brain.

Anders just blinked at her. “Okay? What… what would you prefer I call you?”

Her legs dragged her to the largest, sturdiest cot without instruction. She let her hand drop from her ribs while her brain turned the question over. “Three-twelve or Six,” she spoke to the floor. 

“You…” Anders’ voice was above her, unmoved. “Want me to call you numbers?”

Her frown returned, what was wrong with that? Fine though, she could think of something. “Sierra then. Or Beta.”

“Alright. Sierra.”

“I’m sticking with Ueda,” Hawke chimed in from the corner. Her teeth grit together, but she didn’t respond. 

“Now, take off your shirt.”

Untrimmed hair tickled her ears as her head snapped up.

“This one,” Anders hooked a thumb towards Varric, “told me what you were up to last night -” the muscles in her jaw tightened “- and even if he didn’t I’d want to see what’s giving you trouble.”

“It’s nothing,” she despised the bit of hurriedness that crept into her voice, that weakness. She hadn’t been… it was just… not being able to wear her suit around people was one thing. But her body? Only doctors had seen it after Onyx, and while Anders was one - or as close as possible - Varric and Hawke were not.

They were _people._ Not Spartans or doctors but _people_.

“Shirt off. Now. Or I’ll get Isabela down here to cut it off.”

“Oh, she’d _love_ that,” Hawke drawled.

Her jaw twitched and she raised her arms to wiggle out of it. Pain split across her shoulder and chest when they were higher than her head, but Anders had the good bedside manner to finish pulling the rest up quickly.

Two low whistles came from her left by the door, but she would not acknowledge them. Anders meanwhile, looked actually mad. 

“You went to _sleep_ like this?”

She tried to shrug, but the pain along her field bandaged shoulder stopped her. “I’ve had worse.”

“Worse? Your whole left side is _purple_ and -” he leant over to check over her shoulders “- Maker, it’s almost black on your back!”

“Just bruising,” she muttered indignantly. “I would have come if it was life threatening.” This was just inconvenient.

“Oh hey,” Hawke said, “she’s the opposite of me. What’s that like?”

“Just as annoying I’m sure, Hawke,” Anders growled, then - “lay down.”

The moment her head hit the facsimile of a pillow Anders hands were hovering, glowing over her chest. Warmth and pins and needles spread up her breast, onto her shoulder, and then over to her back. It had her tensing.

“Relax, it’s just healing magic.”

‘Relax’ and ‘magic’ did not belong in the same sentence together, Six concurred. It was still too new.

A minute passed, silent save for Anders’ murmuring, before feet plodded along the dirt and stopped next to her head. A half opened eye showed Hawke, head cocked and slightly frowning. “What are those scars?”

“Which ones?” The Zealot that had finished her certainly left his mark across her chest. 

“The matching ones, on your breast.”

Ah. “Those were my breasts.” The scars were so old, faded, and thin she’d forgotten about them. They were barely even visible anymore.

“You had them removed?” Hawke’s voice wasn’t quite shocked, but it was definitely surprised. 

“Yes. I hated them.” A pause, “is that uncommon here?”

“‘Here,’ she says,” Varric mumbled. 

“Not really. But it’s always a magical procedure ‘here.’ Cutting them off? Sounds painful.”

“Not to mention you’re just begging fate to come along and give you blood poisoning,” Varric added. 

Anders’ mumbling stopped above her, and she sat up. Not a single spark of pain. A quick nod to the mage that he returned, before standing and vanishing into the potion cabinet. 

“It’s not painful, and infection isn’t much of an issue. If your surgeon knows what they’re doing.”

Another moment of silence, her shirt was splayed across another cot, but she wanted to relish the lack of pain for a hearbeat longer. “I like the scars,” Varric concluded. 

“Me too,” Hawke settled with a nod and met her eyes.

“Thank you,” she hissed, stood, and threw her shirt on. “I’m _glad_ I have your _approval_.”

“That’s not what I -” Hawke sighed. One metal clad hand scratched the back of her head. “I’m sorry.”

Six grunted an acknowledgement, then whipped out her knife and whetstone. She was letting them get to her too much, or maybe she was just letting last night and the dreams affect her. Either way she was out of line.

“I wanted to ask you something,” Hawke said at length. 

Her eyes flicked up away from the movement of her hands momentarily before returning. “Then ask.”

“Want to go on an outing with us tomorrow?”

The whetstone paused, water sloughing off the blade in waves. “Outing?”

“Yes, an outing. You know, hit the Wounded Coast, see the sights, hunt some slavers, get paid,” her attention perked at the slavers, and, to her disgust, at the ‘paid.’ _Not my fault,_ she reasoned. It was the fault of her job. Of this world. She looked at Hawke, nodding slightly for her to continue. 

The woman’s irritating little smirk returned, and she sat on the cot across from her. “That band of slavers you handled - yes, you’re very strong and we’re all very impressed -” Six frowned “- had a little hideout that a friend of mine found not too far out on the Wounded Coast. I’ve been… commissioned by some folk to take care of it. The charms of altruism, hm?”

Her frown met the blade. Stared back at her. Slaving was appalling, and she doubted the Noble would be open tomorrow - or anytime this week - so that both freed her up and condemned her to unemployment. Brown eyes left the knife and studied Hawke’s face. Sharp features with a scar on her lip and another through her eyebrow. The woman was irritating, and Six always felt like she was the butt of some joke she didn’t understand around her. It was like constantly having her own inadequacy thrown in her face. 

It was horrifying and excruciating, considering the usual results of inadequacy through her life. Anything less than perfection was absolutely unacceptable.

And she was reminded of that every second of every minute around the short haired mage.

That was another thing too, the magic. It was… unknown. Unsettling. The versatility of the stuff made it impossible to predict and the sheer upper hand that mages held over her...

Suffice to say she didn’t like it.

On the other hand Anders, Isabela, even Varric, they weren’t bad. They even made her feel welcome. A strange, upsetting thing, but she wanted more of it. Wasn’t sure why it was upsetting though.

And then there was the prospect of a fight - not a good one like last night’s - but a fight all the same. Not to mention the pay. Speaking of…

“How much?” 

“Eight gold sovereigns per person,” Six’s eyes widened slightly in shock; that was enough to cover her rent for the rest of the year. “I know,” Hawke said, managing to pick up on her tell, “I get all the best jobs. So. Interested in going on a little adventure with me?”

“I need a place and time.”

Hawke’s wicked smile grew even wider and her eyes positively lit up. “Lowtown market, ninth bell,” the woman winked and rose as Anders returned with her trial potion. “Be there.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What a fuckin day. 2021 just started and already so much going on. Granted, most of it is 2020’s residual trauma, but still.
> 
> Anyway! New chapter! Not entirely happy with this one’s prose. I feel like the sentence structure is too repetitive and the actions and verbs too bland, but oh well. It’s another older chapter so w/e. As always, please tell me what y’all think and feel free to point out any grammatical errors!
> 
> It’s nice to be publishing and writing again. I wanted to do it the whole two week break, but just never had the time. Didn’t have the time for anything really. Didn’t end up travelling because I’m not an insane person, but started a new position at my job with a lot more work and trying to coordinate gift arrivals and virtual time with loved-ones sapped a lot out of me. Doesn’t help that I got back into WoW, God help me. 
> 
> I’ve been batting around an idea for a massively self-indulgent 40k fic as well. I’ll see where that goes and keep y’all updated if I write more than like two chapters. Anyway!
> 
> Stay safe out there, y’all, and I hope your 2021 is much, much better than your 2020.


	7. Technical Truths

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Six sees Hawke fight and Varric finds a map.

“I still think it’s Anderfells.”

Six swallowed a huff and settled for a sideye at the mage scrutinizing her. They’d been outside the city for two or so hours now, plodding along trails up and down the Wounded Coast searching for the landmarks that Hawke’s contact had described. 

So far Hawke and Varric had instead devoted every waking minute to guessing her origins. Hawke, especially, delighting in every twitch of her brow as they did. 

“Can’t be Anderfells, Hawke, Blondie’s from there and they look nothing alike.”

“Anders is from the Anderfells?” Hawke blinked, “well. That’s stupid. The northern bits then, all windswept and rough and abandoned. I think,” the woman added in a murmur. 

“Aren’t they covered in Blight too?”

The mage shrugged, “I’m sure Ueda -” a pulse of frustration and Hawke grinned “- here could handle it. Couldn’t you?”

A deep breath. Six’s eyes found the ocean and just watched it ripple. “I am not from the Anderfells,” she said after she was certain it wouldn’t come out strained.

“Ooo direct confirmation. Progress, progress.” Hawke sidled up to her, nearly brushing shoulders and just a hair outside of Six’s personal space. She still tensed. “Where then?”

Blue eyes sparkled back at her, either ignorant of or ignoring the half glare she threw at them. And then an idea struck her, and a smile slipped onto her mouth. It was pure satisfaction to watch the assurance flicker in Hawke’s eyes. “Show me a map and I’ll show you where I’m from.”

She’d yet to see one after all - in large part to accurate maps being hard to make before satellites and digitalization. This would give her a chance to finally get her bearings on the world beyond a farmer’s approximation and whatever the hell Hawke had going. _And maybe_ , she thought as a plan came together in her mind, _a cover story._

Blue eyes narrowed ever so slightly back at her while Varric cheered behind them. “What’s the catch?” Doubt littered the mage’s voice like driftwood on a beach. 

“No catch,” Six lied, her upturned lips growing to a smile, “just an honest deal.”

“No such thing, Numbers,” Varric said through a stretch, then paused. “No, no. That one’s bad.”

“Then it matches the rest,” the Guard Captain stated flatly, hand still frozen on the hilt of her sword and eyes roaming the cliffs closest to the ocean. 

“Any more guessing games about my past?”

Varric hummed and Hawke started a long, drawn out “well,” but Aveline - who had been mostly silent on their trip so far save for jibes at Varric and Hawke - answered for her.

“You were a soldier,” it wasn’t a question, but a statement; and only the second or third time since leaving the walls that the woman had made eye contact with her. Hard, green eyes. Most eyes back home had been similar. 

She gave the woman a single nod, “I am.” And then her lips shifted down, eyes drifting out to watch the ocean again. The sun was a great, pale bulb cut into shimmering columns across the surface. “Was,” she tested the word on her lips. There was no UNSC here, no Covenant. Only elves and magic and demons and dwarves. She was very, very far from home.

_Are you even a Spartan anymore?_ It was a small voice, niggling and desperate like a starving rat. But it had been growing each and every day.

No armor, no guns, no enemies, no commanders, no orders. No humanity to save and no Insurrection or Covenant to kill. 

‘Was’ seemed more and more appropriate, and that terrified her. 

Hair tickled her ears as she shook the thoughts away, _No. I still have..._ her hand touched her collarbone where the dogtags lay. _Not a deserter._

“Yoohoo? Ueda?” A flinch snapped across her face and left, her hand snapping out to grab the wrist waving right in front of her eyes. Her instincts screamed ‘threat,’ but when her eyes traced back up the arm it was only Hawke. 

“Ooo,” Hawke’s grin gained a different twist, one Six couldn’t place. “Excellent grip strength, I see.”

She loosened her hand, and turned her gaze back to the road and away from Hawke. “Did you catch the question?”

“No.” Obviously.

“Aveline asked how long you’ve been out,” Varric supplied for her.

Did dead qualify as out? Was she out now if she was still breathing here? “Nine weeks.” Nine weeks since she got split in half on Reach and woke up here at least. That was the best answer she had. 

Hawke’s eyes turned sharp and curious beside her, “that’s not long.”

“It’s not,” she agreed, forcing her eyes to stay focused on the road. 

“And you’re in Kirkwall now,” she could feel Varric’s eyes on her back, glittering and attentive and bordering on unwelcome. 

“Which means you fought for someone close by!” Hawke shouted it like some grand revelation, her face sparkling with satisfaction that _she_ had been able to puzzle out her origins based off one word answers and fragments of hints. 

  
It was so complete, so utterly triumphant, that Six couldn’t help but chuckle. Short, sweet, and low. The smile all but vanished from the mage’s face. “What? What is it?”

The petulant disappointment underlining Hawke’s voice almost made her chuckle again, but she settled for a smile and as flat and innocent a “nothing,” she could make.

The woman grumbled beside her while Varric and Aveline chuckled. “Getting there, Hawke,” the dwarf appeared at his friends side to pat her on the back. “We’re getting there.”

“How close are the slavers, Hawke? I’ve got paperwork to do back at the barracks.”

Hawke’s face immediately brightened, “oh Aveline, can’t we just go on walks together like we used to? The good old days, you remember?”

“I remember you breaking every law on file in under thirty seconds,” the Guard Captain grumbled.

Hawke just waved it off, “that was just one time, and, technically, you were an accomplice. As for the slavers, we should be getting close. Passed the first three landmarks not long ago, so it should be just around the bend and up in a cave on the right.”

“Didn’t bother to tell us?” Six’s brow was raised as high as she could bring it, which was to say, not very. 

Hawke mimicked her, eyebrow vanishing into her messy hair. “The conversation was just so riveting I would hate to interrupt.”

Six’s eyebrow raised a little more, but Aveline spoke for her. “How considerate of you, Hawke.”

“You know me, Aveline, the picture of manners and thoughtfulness,” Varric snorted behind them, the sound like an engine stalling, just as Six and Hawke rounded a bend in the barely used path. They stood before the mouth of a cave twice her height. Carts, barrels, crates, and human-sized cages lined the entrance while the remains of a campfire gently smoked beside it.

“Look at that,” Aveline grunted. “Your info was right this time.”

“‘This time?’”

“Nothing to worry about,” Hawke reassured her, hand almost touching her shoulder before she noticed Six tense up. It shifted smoothly to hook in her belt. “Sometimes people move camp or what have you.”

“Or try to have us ambushed and killed,” Varric filled in.

“Ah.” Familiar, that.

“Anyway, let’s go give our friends a nice, warm -” fire burst to life in Hawke’s palm “- Kirkwall greeting, eh?”

* * *

“Ueda, left!” Hawke screamed, and Six followed, sidestepping just in time for a pulsing line of fire to burn through the air over her right shoulder and slam into the massive man she’d been fighting. The line stopped and seared into his breastplate, detonating as soon as the tail caught up with the head and catapulting him across the cave. 

Varric cheered behind her, but Six wasted no time, feet already pounding their course toward the pair of mages in the back, garbed and masked and screaming. Another line of fire seared through the air on her left only for its target to raise a hand and stop it in its tracks with a flickering shield. 

The right’s staff glowed blue, and she spun right instinctively, a bolt of lightning lancing the spot she’d been standing. She lost no momentum, and the mage was getting closer. Four meters now. Their staff raised again, a dull, angry chant carrying to her ears and making the hairs on her neck stand on end. Three meters and their staff was raised above the ground, ready to slam.

“Varric!” Hawke shouted, “volley!”

Three arrows soared low on her right, the first catching her mage in the thigh before he could pivot to a shield. The next two pinged off a wall of pulsing purple, an opaque barrier between the mage and her. One second, two, and the shield lowered.

Just in time for her longsword to slam through the caster’s chest. 

Movement in her peripheral as the other mage cursed and whirled on her, staff glowing an angry orange that burbled and spat at the tip. Her lunge transformed into a spin, right arm out in a reverse grip that - 

That caught the slumping corpse square in the neck with the tip of her blade. 

Six grunted and pulled the knife out, letting the body flop to the floor and eyeing the bolt that rested squarely in the mage’s temple.

Grunts and screams were cut short behind her as Hawke and her people polished off the threadbare resistance; her longsword slid out of the mage wetly, her legs crouching low enough to begin cleaning the blade with the slaver’s tunic. Brown eyes found the others while her hands worked. 

They were good fighters, all in all. Accurate and supportive and able to cover the other’s weaknesses, but what pulled them together and made them lethal was Hawke. The mage had displayed a significantly above average level of situational awareness, tactical acumen, and creative thinking that let them become more than the sum of their parts. 

Hawke hadn’t branched that out much to her during the fight, with only occasional barked orders of targets and dodges. But, as their eyes met, Six got the feeling that was more because Hawke was getting acquainted with how she fought and how she could be used. She’d seen the same calculating look in Kurt and Mendez’s eyes at the start, Bak’s after that, and Carter’s before the end, and she saw it here now. 

The black-haired mage broke eye contact first, moving to Aveline and Varric to speak before she shifted to picking over each one of the bodies. Six watched her the whole time, the deftness of her fingers and quickness of her routine - always the neck first, followed by the chest and fingers, then down to the pockets on the legs - speaking of the woman’s experience. Her lips turned ever so slightly downward.

“What?” Hawke’s smile was easy and her bearing utterly casual as she stepped up to search the mage with an arrow through her temple. “Never loot a corpse before?” The woman said it so easily Six was almost convinced it was a regular activity civilians did. 

“Not for anything beyond weapons, ammunition, or intelligence, no.” Covenant never had anything worth taking beyond that, neither did Insurrectionists really. Looting a corpse - any corpse - for money and valuables… She scrunched her nose a bit. It reeked of poor discipline. Reminded her of Jackals picking over broken, swollen carcasses. 

The woman’s grin turned lopsided, “never lived then.” Hawke rose and circled round to the mage whose robes she was using to clean her blade. Hawke’s gauntlented hands moved in a quick shooing motion that earned her a flat look. “Besides, it’s not like they need it anymore, is it?” A wet slap as she slapped a hand down on the bloodied cowl of the corpse, “if these slaver scum ever deserved to have it in the first place.” Blue eyes went wide as she slipped a large, gaudy ring off the mage’s limp hand. “See? How much do you want to bet this guy,” another slap on the bloodied cowl. “Ripped this off some poor unfortunate chattel, hm?”

“It’s greedy,” she shot out, sensing Hawke wouldn’t care if she pointed out anything at all about discipline.

“It’s survival,” the mage countered, winking at her. Pushing up off her knees, Hawke rose. “Now come on, ethics is boring and my throat is parched from all that casting and yelling. I want a drink.”

“A drink?” She tried not to let the skepticism creep into her voice. There was no way to tell where this conversation was going, or if she should be expecting to be mocked by the woman for her performance against the demon two nights ago. “I thought this ‘outing’ was just to eliminate slavers.”

“They’re ‘eliminated,’ yes, but no outing is complete without a trip to the Hanged Man after. It’s tradition, even Aveline is going!”

“Huh?” the Guard Captain glanced up at the sound of her name. “Where am I going?”

“See?” Hawke said, “she’s all about it! Besides, drinks and food will be on me!”

Six’s stomach growled at the mention of food. She’d barely had any calories this morning, let alone this week. It was beginning to wear her down. “On you?” 

Hawke’s grin grew wider. “On me.”

* * *

Three-twelve leant against the wall of the musty pub and watched Hawke lose at cards. The mage’s crumpled squares of paper slapped on the table and her mouth became a petulant scowl. Looking at it made Three-twelve almost smile. 

“Tonight is not your night, is it Hawke?” The dark skinned woman - Isabela, she recalled - gave the mage’s shoulder a small, consoling pat. It didn’t move the scowl even a fraction. 

“That implies Hawke is ever _good_ at Wicked Grace,” Hawke squawked, “something I’ve yet to see.”

“Fenris!? How could you?!”

The angry elf snorted, played his cards, and took the last of her betting money. 

Hawke’s head plopped on the table, shoulders slumped and moping like a sad old hill. Across the table a huge dog barked at her, and the mage found the strength to point a finger and narrow her eyes. “Not this time, traitor. If it wasn’t for you I wouldn’t be in this mess!”

The dog’s ears flattened and it whined, head mimicking Hawke’s in its soft plop onto the wood. “Hawke - that was uncalled for,” the elven mage scolded, one hand moving to scratch between the thing’s ears. 

“Yes, Hawke, no need to blame the dog,” Anders smirked and Six noticed the woman narrow her eyes, “not when he’s won twices as many matches as you have.”

Six snorted, and every eye at the table shifted to her. She didn’t fidget or tense - was used to being stared at - but she could still feel each pair roving over her as her eyes found Hawke’s cards. Another moment where she ached to be in the anonymity of her armor. At the very least have a helmet.

After a beat with no one saying anything her eyes shifted up from the cards to the woman herself. Her head was still on the table, but the frown and the frustration were gone, replaced by a sharp, sparkling mischief. 

“Varric,” she drawled, head raising to rest on a propped elbow, “do you still have that old map of Thedas in your room? The one Bartrand left you?”

A slow, knowing grin spread across the dwarf’s mouth. “Why Hawke, I believe I do.” His legs kicked off the table and he rose in one fluid motion, vanishing up the stairs and into the back of the pub. 

“Did I miss something?” Merrill’s eyes were wide and confused - what seemed to be their permanent state. “Why’s Varric gone to fetch his map?”

Hawke’s sharp gaze and crooked smirk switched over to the elf, “our new friend Ueda -” Six and Anders frowned while Hawke hooked a thumb at her “- has made a deal with Varric and I. We show her a map of Thedas, she points out where she’s from.” Six watched the last of the dejection leak out of Hawke and let her return to lounging back in her chair, one foot pushing her chair up and down off the ground. That grin flashed back to Six, and it absolutely oozed smugness. 

“Oooo, that’s exciting! That’s exciting isn’t it, Isabela?” 

“Oh, Puppy. A whole land of women like her?” Dark brown eyes found hers, and Six could’ve sworn the woman _purred_. “That’s _very_ exciting.”

It took effort not to shift from foot to foot. The attention at her snort had been cursory, but the focus on her now was deliberate, studious. She decided to just ignore them, shift her focus to the stairs Varric had vanished up and take subtle, calming breaths. 

A bit sooner than expected, but her plan should still hold. Hopefully. If she could pull it off convincingly. Another breath. She’d just have to stick to technical truths - she’d always been a terrible liar - and throwing just enough information at them to keep them off balance. 

Brown leather and chest hair flashed in her vision and ripped her back to the moment, a few seconds later Varric was slamming his map onto the table and placing mugs at the corners to keep it from rolling up. “Alright, Ueda, your turn.”

One step forward had her off the wall and leaning over the table. The map was stained and torn at the edges, but remarkably clear once the cartography started. A short burst of disappointment so acute it was almost painful flicked down her throat the moment she saw the land. This was no world she recognized. Intellectually, she’d known that, but… still. 

Her hair tickled her ears as she shook her head and banished the thought, focusing wholly on the map and ignoring everything she could about her surroundings. Brown eyes and one finger found Kirkwall after a minute of searching. It was a decorative dot at the mouth of a rocky bay into the Waking Sea. Sketches of mountains were everywhere north of it, and east was the Planasene Forest where Ellena and Tamar had lived. Where she’d woken up. Her finger lingered a moment before moving.

From there her focus spread out in a careful spiral that was only half a ruse. She really didn’t know any of the lands, and she was doing her best to absorb and memorize the layout of the continent, but it did serve a very deliberate purpose of making her appear to be looking for something. 

Every now and again, she’d stop, finger pressed to a town or city name, and lean in, squinting. Then, with a slight shake of her head, she’d lean back and continue spiralling out around the map.

Her finger finally stopped at The Donarks, a forested land north of the Anderfels and the Wandering Hills. Her lips quirked downward and, for the first time since looking at the map, she raised her head to make eye contact with Varric. “What’s on the other side of this,” she asked, finger tapping the far east side of the map.

Every head around the table leaned forward to see what she was poking, and, every brow at the table furrowed when they did. “The Amaranthine Ocean?” Varric’s eyes flicked back up to meet hers, “nothing. At least as far as I know. Rivaini?”

Gold and brown danced as the woman shook her head. “No land I’ve ever seen. Heard tales of people who tried to find out and came back mad or dead, but…” she shrugged. 

Six frowned. “My home isn’t on the map, no land I know is. But this,” her finger tapped the Amaranthine Ocean again, and she was careful to break all eye contact and focus on the map, “this name sounds familiar.”

For a long second the table was quiet, then Hawke groaned and slammed her head back on the table. “I knew it. I knew there was a catch.”

And then they all exploded into questions. 

Well, some questions. Isabela just looked at her and said, “bullshit.”

Six’s eyes met the woman’s. “Oh? You’ve heard of Damask then?” The woman made a face. “Eremus? Jericho VII? Reach? [ Fehérvár ](https://www.halopedia.org/Feh%C3%A9rv%C3%A1r) ? [ Kecskemét ](https://www.halopedia.org/Kecskem%C3%A9t) ? [ Szolnok ](https://www.halopedia.org/Szolnok)?” Six leant back and crossed her arms. “Jiaozhi? Linxiang? Jiuyuan? Jiangling?” Aggression and anger pooled in her stomach and trickled up her throat. It turned her frown into a scowl. “Go on, point them out for me.”

She couldn’t, so instead Isabela just fidgeted and met her gaze with a matching scowl.  
  


“Whoa there, Ue-” Six’s glare snapped to Varric “- Sierra. This is just a bit… outlandish to us is all. Nobody’s come across the Amaranthine Ocean that Thedas didn’t send in the first place in, well, ever. We just… need a moment.”

Her hackles lowered a bit at that, and she forced them the rest of the way down manually. Logically, she knew it was unbelievable and their questioning was warranted, but her anger just wanted to interpret that as them doubting her home. Her life. Her chest moved in a deep breath that settled the simmering anger as she straightened and crossed her arms. “Understandable. Ask whatever questions you like, I’ll answer them.”

“You knew,” Hawke accused. Her blue eyes were narrowed and she was leant back in her chair, both hands behind her head. “You knew from the minute we met you. How?”

Six did her best to hold the woman’s gaze. “My home is… not like Thedas. It’s at war, for one - closer to a genocide - been that way for twenty-seven years. Against creatures no one here knows about.” She shook her head slightly. “Impossible. It’s impossible not to know. Two,” her gaze shifted over to Varric, Fenris, and Merrill. “There are no elves or dwarves. Only humans. I knew I had to be far away from home.” A twinge of sadness, _but I don’t know how far._

“No elves?” Merrill’s voice sounded like she’d been kicked. “What happened to them?”

“Nothing. They were never there.” From Merrill’s slumped shoulders and frown it was clear that didn’t help. 

“It’s only humans?” Varric’s face was screwed up in thought, “that’s…”

“Dumb,” Hawke finished for him. “That’s dumb.”

Six could only lift her shoulders in a small shrug. “It’s humans and the ones trying to kill us. There’s…” she paused and frowned, eyes shifting down to the map still spread across the table. “Not many of us left.” The words were bitter on her tongue. They felt almost traitorous to voice, but…

“Why _are_ they trying to kill you?” That was Isabela, leant forward with her head resting on her hands. For once, she wasn’t smiling at her. 

“Zealotry. We offend their gods by existing.” 

“That’s ironic,” Merrill muttered, but didn’t notice Six’s glance or move to elaborate. 

“Why’d you leave? And how did you get all the way over to our lovely city?” Varric’s smirk was easy and friendly, but his eyes were sharp. 

“I didn’t -” her fists clenched around the table. _Traitor,_ whispered a voice. _Deserter._ “I don’t _know_ how I got here,” she growled to the wood. “I was -” cornered, trapped. Split in half from her stomach to shoulder. She could still feel it burning, ripping. The world became smaller and her vision tunnelled. “Was _fighting_ then… then I woke up in the Planasene Forest nine weeks ago. In a logging hut.”

The groaning of the wood under her grip snapped her back to reality. The burning didn’t fade, but it receded, made it easier to breathe. A blink at her whitened knuckles, then back up at the faces looking at her with - mostly - undisguised concern or skepticism. Brown eyes met blue and she huffed, shoved off the table to lean back against the wall with her arms crossed. “Now I’m stuck here with no way back.” No way to help, no way to fight. No way to get revenge. “That’s all I know.”

Varric and Isabela reclined and hummed to themselves. Anders, Merrill, and Hawke just looked her over with their eyes, though whether it was with concern or doubt she couldn’t tell. Fenris, the angry one, just continued squinting at her - as he had been since she started talking. 

“How do you speak our language?” Her eyes moved to Fenris. It was the first direct comment he’d made to her since his promise to kill her seconds after they first met. She couldn’t decipher his tone, all she knew was that it was low. 

“Naega malhaneun yuilhan eon-eoneun anibnida.” Five pairs of eyes blinked blankly back at her. “But I don’t know. This language is common, but it is not the only one. Chance.” Her brows furrowed. “Or magic.” Was that possible? Could she have had some sort of translation spell placed on her when she arrived? That seemed unlikely.

“You didn’t curse him, did you? Call him a whore or something?” Hawke leaned forward, “because if you did you need to teach me how _._ ”

“Thank you, _mage_.”

“I did not,” Six couldn’t help the way her lips upturned at the slump of Hawke’s shoulders. “I said ‘it is not the only language I speak.’” Her eyes moved around the table from one face to another. “Any more questions?”

“That’s it?” Anders’ frown was mirrored in his eyebrows, “you were fighting and you just woke up here in Thedas?”

She tried to hold his eyes, but couldn’t. She settled for staring at the space between them instead. “Yes,” she lied, trying to ignore the flare of burning across her chest. “That’s all I know.” 

No one would believe her if she said she’d died. She didn’t really believe herself, and she could remember every agonizing moment in near perfect, painful clarity.

Another round of silence at the table, this time broken by Merrill. “Are all humans there as big as you?” 

“No,” she replied, letting the pride welling in her stomach suffuse her stance. Even though the niggling voices grew alongside it. “Only a handful. We’re unique.” _If you’re still one of them._ It almost made her flinch, but she swallowed it. 

The words lingered in the middle of the table, her eyes roaming the faces around her and trying to spot any burgeoning questions. When none came she shifted focus over to Hawke, a frown on her face and her nose a little scrunched. “You mentioned free food.”

The mage smiled. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ey all! Another Wednesday, another chapter. Frankly I’m getting a little nervous about my remaining buffer - I’ve spent way too much time writing original fiction than writing more chapters for this or my other fic. I’m sure it’ll work out, and there’s no shame in taking a quick two week break to write three or four chapters either I think.
> 
> I’ve also been absolutely obsessed with a series called the Locked Tomb Trilogy, the first book being Gideon the Ninth. Fuck is it good. If you like necromancers, space, and necromancers in space then I cannot recommend it enough. Seriously, go check it out. 
> 
> A quick word on Six’s actions: yea, don’t worry. She’ll tell them - more likely one or two - about the whole dying and waking up in a new universe thing, but it’ll be a while. She doesn’t believe it herself and there’s no evidence that a bunch of medieval folk would even be capable of understanding how she would attempt to explain it. Much simpler to say “uh yea, I come from this part of the world that is very conveniently far away and unexplored.” In a way, it’s not entirely a lie. She’s trying to frame the UNSC-verse in the context of a unexplored continent. We’ll get more of that as we go on. 
> 
> Other than that a very important bond-establishment chapter with Six and Hawke’s crew. See y’all next wednesday, and stay safe!


	8. Side Jobs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Six finds another side gig, and barely manages to avoid running into Hawke along the way.

“Listen,” the dwarf said, hands raised. “I don’t make the rules. I have to make a living too, y’know. I can’t just lend money with no expectation to pay it back, that’s ridiculous! People would walk all over me and my family!” 

Three-twelve’s expression remained blank as she watched the man. Tried to find some hint in his body language on sincerity. Frustration tickled her thoughts when she couldn’t. “So you need someone to _make_ them pay.”

Great, wiry brown hair rippled with the sigh that burst from the dwarf. “Not… necessarily. More than anything I just need someone to make sure they don’t stick a sword in my gut when I ask for my due.” He crossed his arms and looked up at her. “You probably won’t have to _do_ anything. Other than stand there and,” he gestured to all of her, “look intimidating.”

Her head cocked ever so slightly as she hummed. “Pay?”

A little of the tension drained from the dwarf’s shoulders. “Two silver on a per house basis. Triple if any trouble happens and I don’t get sliced.” 

Equal to a shift of bouncing if they got through three houses then. Not bad. She couldn’t stop the disgruntled feeling though; Hawke’s job last week had spoiled her. “Sounds good,” she pushed off the wall and sheathed her knife. Watched the man go rigid with satisfaction. “Time?”

“Not for another hour or so, I think. Give everyone a chance to get back from work in the foundries.” His hands clapped together, “I’ll see you at the market then! ‘Member, one hour!”

“One hour,” she repeated to humor him. “One hour.”

Three-twelve spent it perusing the Lowtown bazaar, specifically the weaponsmith and the armorsmith. Half the sovereigns had already gone to good use getting her a new, veridium breastplate - custom forged. It was a rushed job, and it pinched if she stretched her arms all the way out forward, but it at least vaguely had her measurements in mind and wasn’t just a steel crop top.

Another sovereign had gone to a nice, steel longsword. Solid and fairly well balanced, it barely had a nick on it. 

Swords in general were still a martial weakness of hers - knives had been the most extensive formal training the UNSC had ever given to bladed weapons -, but she’d managed to learn on the fly against some hinge-heads. It would pay to save for a tutor though, she was far, far from perfect and that was unbearable. 

By the time Orshen showed back up with collection pouch in hand she’d spent another silver on a bowl of fish stew. It was the same color as Lowtown’s walls, but it was calories. And protein. _A rarity here,_ she grumbled. 

He approached with open arms and a wide smile, “there you are, my friend! Ready to go? Or need another minute to eat?”

“Wait one,” she said and inhaled the rest of the stew before turning to thunk the bowl back on the hawker’s stall. “Ready.”

He stared at her, blinked once. Then he guffawed. “All business, I like it!” Gold flashed at his waist as he turned, and she fell into step behind him. It was less walking and more shuffling with how much she had to restrict her stride. “First stop is a man named Leland. One o’ them Fereldans who came with the Blight.” 

They rounded a corner, a huddled group of adolescents eyeing the metal on the dwarf’s thumbs out of the corner of her eye. “Weapons?”

The dwarf gave her a side eye. “Weapons? I, um, I don’t know? He’s in Lowtown like the rest of us, so he’d be stupid to be unarmed. But there’s a difference between havin’ one and knowin’ how ta use it.”

“Even a novice can kill with surprise.” A quote from Kurt. A lesson he and Mendez had beat into them. Underestimation got you killed.

Orshen just shrugged. “True enough, I suppose. Is there -”

“It would be best if you stayed slightly behind me at the door.”

“Ah. Right. Well. I’ll do that then.”

Her hair tickled her neck in a brief nod to the man. “Thank you.”

* * *

Leland was a disorganized, scatterbrained man who yelped when he answered the door. Clothes a mess and hair that was more of a bird’s nest than anything else, but he rushed to pay them off as soon as Orshen greeted him.

Next was a sister and brother, Nevarrans according to Orshen, who spat venom and had her hands never leaving her hilts. They paid without incident though, and the sigh Orshen let loose after echoed through the alleyways. 

This was the third house so far. A low, dilapidated thing covered in chipped and peeling paint that sagged in the sunlight. The rest of the homes bordering it weren’t much better. “Alienage,” Orshen muttered beside her, “terrible places, aren’t they?”

She didn’t answer, too busy scanning the intricately painted homes, stalls, and tree. Of all the places in Lowtown she’d been too so far, this one was the most decrepit. Of all the places, this one was the most colorful.

“Brace yourself,” her focus snapped back to the door in front of them, “this one won’t be fun.” And then he knocked. 

“Coming!” The voice was singsong and soprano. Light. Two minutes later and the door swung open, a diminutive elven woman leaning against it with a large smile. 

  
It vanished when her eyes met Six’s. “Orshen.” Instantly the woman’s posture went rigid, shifting off the door to wring her hands in her apron. “What brings you and your -” a nervous twitch of her lips “- friend here today?”   
  


“I think you know, Nene. I…” a sigh exploded from his mouth and trembled down his legs. “I can’t wait any longer.” The woman’s hands began to shake.

Brown hair quivered as she nodded once. Then again, and again, and again. Faster and faster until her eyes went wide and she locked up. “Of course. I-I can have it to you by the end of the w-week.”

“You said that three weeks ago, Nene, and three weeks before that, and five weeks before that.” Nene’s green eyes flitted to her. “I need something today.”

“Just three more days,” the words burst out of her lips like water from a dam, “just three more days and-and I can have half of it ready a-and then -”

“No.” she flinched like he’d slapped her. “No,” more gentle this time. “I need something today. Please don’t make me get the guard involved.”

All the blood drained from the elf’s face at once, a flash of green all there was before her eyes were locked back on Orshen. “Come inside,” the woman whispered, and vanished into the hovel.

Three-twelve shot a look at Orshen. Tired blue eyes and a hand running through his hair over and over again. Like he would find gold in it if he just swept through it one more time. He nodded at her, and she led the way inside. 

She had to almost bow to fit through the door, and even then her hair scraped the top of the frame. Her focus snapped to the corners closest to the entrance (nothing but blankets) as soon as she could see them, then back to the corners at the rear, and then to the one, single hallway to the left. No one but the elf: stock still in the middle of the dining room save for the wringing of her fingers. 

It was dim. Very dim. Twin lines of sunlight from the gaps between the blinds cut across the floor in parallel, and scattered candles were glued to the table with melting wax. A small fire cracked softly in the corner, stew bubbling on top. 

“Can we talk, Orshen?” Her voice trembled like a leaf, caught when the man nodded. “Alone.”

“He doesn’t leave my sight,” she stated flatly. Orshen sent her a look, but she ignored it. For all they knew the woman would kill him soon as they were alone. Knives were very, _very_ easy to hide. 

“That’s… that’s okay,” the elf muttered to the wall, sounding more for herself than for them. Then her head snapped up, a fresh hardness to her eyes. “I can work with both of you.”

And then she shucked her dress to the floor. 

Six’s eyes went wide, her brain and muscles stuttering for a moment before - 

“Whoa, whoa, whoa! Hang on there, lass!” Orshen’s hands shot out in front of him, as if he could magic her clothes back on. “You don’t need to do that.”

The hardness in Nene’s eyes flickered. “Why not? I can pay,” a step forward and Six barely managed to drown the vicious reflex to step _back_ . _Far_ back. “Please. Let me.”

Orshen laughed, high and nervous and strained, “no, no, I’m afraid I can’t accept that.”

Nene rippled and her face crumpled. Her mouth morphed from a smile to a grimace, and she collapsed back onto a rough chair. “It’s all I have,” she mumbled, green eyes flickering from Orshen to Six. “All I have. I can’t afford-not with the little ones-”

“Shh, shh,” Orshen approached her like an EOD tech approached a bomb while Six remained frozen to the spot. Her brain only caught back up when Nene started to cry.

One hand snatched a blanket from behind her before she started slow, measured steps toward the elf. Those green eyes were on her as soon as she shifted, so she was careful to ensure that her legs were the only thing moving. She took a knee on the very edge of arms’ length and held her gaze while her hands moved forward to - as gently as she could - wrap her in a blanket. 

And then the crying became loud, and Six reached the end of her training for this scenario. She didn’t move though, afraid it would set her off even more. Just stayed there, knelt just outside of arms reach while Orshen rubbed circles into the woman’s back. 

She hated it. Had always hated the sound of sobbing civilians. It dredged up too many memories of the days after Jericho, huddled in the supply closet of a frigate and rocking back and forth. Flashes of the camps after and the persistent, overwhelming hopelessness that permeated the ramshackle villages and almost drowned her. 

_First Lieutenant Sierra Beta-312_ , _United Nations Space Command Army. First Lieutenant Sierra Beta-312_ , _United Nations Space Command Army._ Rank and serial number. Rank and serial number. It drowned out the crying and left her with static until the woman took a shuddering breath that morphed into a laugh halfway through.

“I still can’t pay,” she mumbled. Her hands pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders. “Not if you don’t… want me.”

“We can use something else,” Orshen reasoned. “Bread, or-or you could work at my place for a while. Husband always wanted kids, right?”

“Maybe,” she whispered. “Work at your place?”

“I don’t know, just an idea,” he gave her a tight smile. “Tell ya what, I’ll come back tomorrow and we can talk it through, okay? How does that sound?”

“Good. That sounds good.”

“Good! Then I guess…” Orshen coughed and rose, and Six followed suit. “I’ll see you tomorrow, lass,” he said gently, and stepped out the door. 

Six lingered a beat, not sure why. Until Nene’s face rose with a small smile. “Ma’am,” she spoke, and bowed out through the door again, carefully ignoring the twin pairs of glimmering eyes peeking out of the hallway.

Orshen was stealing a drink from his flask when she emerged, one hand raised to shield her eyes and let them adjust. “Sorry about that,” he turned to her, ran a hand through his hair. “I told you it would be rough.”

She just hummed in response, her eyes too busy roving the massive tree in the center of the square. What would she have done if Orshen accepted?

Was it bad that she didn’t know?

“Just one more left. Gutirre de Bustamonte. Ready?”

“Ready,” she answered, and tore her eyes from the organic mural.

* * *

Gutirre was an old man, so stooped and bent over in the doorway of his Lowtown hut that Six almost thought he was hunchbacked. It was in a side alley, on the same side of town as the Hanged Man and littered with barrels and trash. 

“How much was it again, dwarf?”

Orshen sighed. “Seventy-five silver pieces,” he repeated for the third time. 

“Ah, seventy- _five_.” The old man’s spotted hands continued to count out the bits, one piece at a time, from a small chest in his hand. “Fifty-five, fifty-six, fifty-seven, fifty-eight,” his hands froze, and his head inched up to meet Orshen’s eyes again. “How much -”

“ _Seventy-five_ silver pieces,” the dwarf ground out, foot tapping a steady rhythm on the floor. Six meanwhile, had her focus scanning the alleyway around them. All the trash, windows, inlaid doors, and high stairs gave any attacker an unsettling amount of cover and concealment. Her hands flexed around leather and rubber, and she scanned again. 

Noise drifted down to them from the wide open space further down the alley on her left - the only one in this side street. Shouts and laughter. A blink and she shifted to scan the right.   
  
“ - sixty-eight, sixty-nine -”

The shouts grew, bouncing between the walls of the alley in a flurry of - she cocked her head - of orders. Something wooden snapped and rippled in a wave of sound that had Orshen pausing and looking left. 

“ - seventy-three, seventy-four, seventy-five!”

A scream, shrill and high, ripped through the air, followed a moment later by tendrils of vomit-green “gas!”

Her hand snapped out and clamped over Orshen’s mouth and nose before he could reply, and a moment later he was over her shoulders in a fireman’s carry, the two of them sprinting away from the gas and toward a -

Dead end. The alleyway ended with mountainside and Six whipped around. Gas was still winding it’s way toward them like billowing snakes. Through the gas was probably suicide without a respirator which left - her eyes landed on the wall of a house nearest, covered in windows and awnings and cracks - up. 

“Hang on,” she ordered Orshen, and then jumped as high as she could up the wall. One hand caught the bottom of a windowsill, then the other. Then she was pulling herself up and up. Compared to drills and ops the wall was easy, and she pulled herself onto the roof before the gas even reached the end of the alleyway. 

A moment to make sure the green hadn’t risen too far above street level and then she was off, free-running over the rooftops and toward the sound of battle.

“Where - are - we - going?” Orshen’s voice was clipped with him bobbing on her shoulders and his hands flailed wildly. 

She leapt over a gap between two homes, not slowing her stride even slightly on landing. On her left the sounds of battle grew clear, no stone blocking the way to her ears. Four very familiar voices stuck out. 

A quick glance left after she vaulted a raised wall showed - like she thought - Hawke, Isabela, Fenris, and Varric battling amongst the mist. All she could make out of their enemies were dark splotches of leather and steel. 

“Out of danger,” to the market or the bazaar. Somewhere with plenty of people and no barrels. 

Screams and an explosion behind her, the shockwave rippling her rough ponytail. 

Maybe just out of reach of the gas then. 

Another leap and she was at the entrance of the alleyway. Trash and dust tumbled across the dirt in the wind, but there was no green. No grass. 

“Descending,” she announced, before flipping around and climbing down the wall of the house. People had gathered at the mouth of the alleyway, Guards desperately trying to fight their way through to halt the commotion and keep civilians back. Another explosion - bigger this time - sent the crowd shuffling and screaming backward, the fringes scattering back away into the city. 

Leather met dirt as she knelt and deposited the wide eyed dwarf. 

“What… what happened?” He managed after a moment of simply opening and closing his mouth. 

“Gas attack,” she explained hastily, bringing the thick scarf she kept around neck up to cover her mouth and nose. It was nothing but tightly weaved cloth, but it would be her CBRN filter for now. Finally fulfilling its purpose. “You’ll be safe here; don’t move.” 

Then she twisted and leapt back up the wall, clambering up as quick as her body would take her. Her blades were out the minute she crested it, her feet pumping to carry her forward. 

Another moment to glance down at the alleyway filled with gas showed Hawke coordinating her team, calling out targets and movements while the guard streamed in behind her to rescue those still inside. Her focus snapped back front as a twang on her level sounded.

Ahead, five meters; one contact in the same dark armor as the ones below loosed an arrow at Hawke. A scan confirmed that more were cresting the walls of the roofs around the alleyway now. 

Her feet carried her forward. 

The archer didn’t notice until it was too late, turning halfway to check on her noise just in time for her knife to slip into his armpit and her shoulder to smash him off the blade and send him flying off the roof. 

He screamed, and then the rest were looking at her. 

She wove between laundry lines and roof furniture to get to the second, her longsword piercing the leather coating her chest and coming out the other side. The woman coughed once before Six’s knife got her throat. 

And then she was diving and rolling left to take cover from the two arrows already on their way to her. A third grazed the stone at her back just a hair after her leg vanished behind it. It gave her a moment to pause and think. Two contacts left, one five meters and one fifteen. Bows - another crack of wood and an explosion beneath her - and so far nothing more. Assaulting them both one at a time was a good way to take an arrow to the neck, but… her eyes drifted to her knife.

Fifteen meters? Give her a moment to make it eleven and she could make that. 

Her legs threw her low and out of cover. An arrow whisked head height at where she’d been and another nicked her ear. Missed. A small grin split her face, growing wider with every careening stride straight for the nearest archer. _You missed._

Closest Archer cursed, nocking and loosing a wild arrow that she spun to avoid, flipping her knife to hold it by the blade as she did. Left foot slammed against the rooftop and she leant into it, hurling the knife toward the furthest archer while the next step had her thrusting up into the chest of the closest one. 

The archer gurgled in surprise, brown eyes holding hers for a moment before fading. 

Furthest Archer just had time to look up and begin drawing when the knife took him in the throat. 

Six barked a quick, triumphant laugh as she watched the furthest rip the knife from his throat and careen off the rooftop, landing headfirst on the ground below. And then she was watching Hawke destroy the last of the barrels and dismantle the stragglers.

Before she could blink though Hawke was sprinting into nearby buildings and barking orders at her team to do the same.

Three-twelve watched as the crew vanished into the buildings again and again, directing guards and carrying out civilians to safety. She watched. Until the gas faded and the crowd dispersed, she watched. 

And something like respect began to grow for the mage and her friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A day late huh? Sorry about that, yesterday was crazy busy for work and, when I finally got in bed and was drifting off to sleep, I bolted upright when I remembered the chapter. 
> 
> Unfortunately, it was nearly midnight then and I haven’t been getting good sleep lately to begin with. Didn’t get any that night either I guess. 
> 
> Anyway! New chapter! New content! As always, feel free to point out any grammatical errors or other things. This one is mostly a filler-ish chapter, but I think it’s necessary to establish how Six is spending time in Kirkwall and struggling through a living and finding her way independent of Hawke and crew. 
> 
> I will hopefully see yall next wednesday, but I may end up taking a one-two week break to catch my breath and increase my chapter buffer. We’ll see. You’ll know based on if there’s an update next Wednesday!
> 
> Stay safe and have a good one yall!


	9. Keeping Promises

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Six gets closer with the crew and visits the kids in the Chantry.

“It’s all luck, I swear.” 

“ _Kaffas_ ,” Fenris swore, sitting up in his seat a little as he narrowed his eyes at Isabela. “You’re cheating, I _know_ you are.”

“Know? Don’t tell me you’ve been counting cards, Broody.”

“I don’t need to ‘count cards’ to know that there are not five Divines in a deck.”

“Oh, he’s definitely been counting cards,” Anders added from the side. 

Three-twelve leant back against the wall with her arms crossed and watched the group bicker. Everytime someone leaned in to whisper harshly her eyes would track them. Take in the lines and curves of their profiles and the clip of their syllables. An effort to memorize the faces they made when they emoted a certain way.

If she had them memorized, then she wouldn’t have to rely on guesswork to decipher one of their moods. 

“You’re just bitter -”

“Nothing new there,” Anders muttered.

“- that I know your tells, Fenris.”

A laugh, coarse and harsh and disbelieving. “Not likely, pirate.” 

Six watched the frown never leave his face, just shift up to be stored in his eyebrows until it could slither back down once the laugh had drowned in the Hanged Man’s din. Isabela - one of the hardest for her to read - leant forward to place a single finger on the elf’s nose. “I know more than you might expect,” she purred.

Brown eyes traced down to her lips, hung there to try to decipher what the chewing meant in this context. When she glanced up to map the rest of the woman’s face, Isabela was staring at her. Gave her a wink that made Six frown internally. 

“If you two are done flirting, I’d like to play the _game_ now,” Varric groused from over his mug of the Hanged Man’s signature swill. It was almost as tall as his head, and she could smell it from a few feet away.

“By all means then, dwarf, make your bet.” 

“Five silvers.”

“I’ll raise you another five,” Isabela announced, slapping down the coins before leaning back in her usual rickety chair. 

“Match,” Fenris grunted, flinching only a little when Anders did the same in a mock tone of his gritty baritone. The man, she decided, had an inverse relationship between stillness and anger. The less he moved, the angrier he was. 

“Ueda?” Varric’s voice in her direction snapped her out of her thoughts. Brought her eyes toward the stout man framed by the raucous movement and chaotic colors of the pub behind him. A small quirk to his lips, and one eyebrow raised. “You want in?”

“No.” The table sparkled with plates, colorful cards, and old stains. Very, _very_ foreign. “I’m fine.” She declined to mention that she didn’t know how to play either. 

“You sure? It’s fun.” A pause, “ever had that before?”

Three-twelve glared lightly at him, then back at that table swirling with markings and art and money. It was… a little much.

“You know, I don’t think she has, Varric.”

“I could introduce her,” movement in Six’s periphery had her head snapping toward Isabela again. The woman leant forward on the table and chewed a lip. Again. “I’m _very_ fun.”

“Stop that,” Anders said, swatting the pirate’s head before he turned to her. “Sierra, would you like to play some Wicked Grace?”

“I’m fine,” she repeated, shifting her weight a bit as she did so she didn’t have to see any of them looking at her. Instead watching a drunk woman stagger down the stairs from the rooms and flag down a server while she struggled to hold back vomit. 

“Like to watch, eh?” Varric asked in a throwaway tone to the cards that Six didn’t see. She was too absorbed in watching the woman chug another beer and continue bad decisions. 

“It’s easier,” she admitted. And it was; even as a kid it was difficult playing games with others. Took it too seriously, and she _hated_ losing.

A guffaw on her left dragged her eyes back to the table and - again - on Isabela. The woman was laughing at her, and Six’s glare only made it more intense. Actually, a quick glance around the table showed that they were _all_ amused to some degree. Though Isabela was the only one full-on laughing, even Fenris had a small smile tugging at his lips. 

Three-twelve’s mouth opened to growl out a question on _what_ was so funny right when Hawke sauntered through the door. 

Merril walked in step behind the woman, somehow finding a balance between shy and utterly, unashamedly inquisitive; staring at everything in sight as if it might run away once it left her vision. 

“Just the people I was looking for!” Hawke’s voice carried easily through the Hanged Man, drawing idly curious eyes that slipped back to their drinks just as fast. Seven in total, two that lingered a bit longer than the others. Six memorized their features as Hawke rested her chin neatly on the top of Anders’ head. “Who’s winning?”

“I am,” Isabela announced it like an actor on stage. Even polished it off with a bow at the end. 

“Because you are _cheating_ ,” Fenris scowled. 

“If you’re not cheating then you’re not trying.”

“Thank you, Hawke, at least someone here understands.”

“Why am I not surprised the mage is in favor of cheating,” Fenris grumbled. But there was hardly heat to his voice, even toeing the line toward good-natured. 

“Oh, you know you love me, Fenris.” Hawke’s hand snapped out to ruffle the elf’s hair for all of a second before it was slapped away. “Now, I don’t suppose anyone here is free to help me and Merrill run a little errand?”

“What kind of errand?” Varric asked the table, tongue poking between his lips like a needle through thread as he eyed the cards in play. 

“Just a little something-something for the guard. A templar got them to bust down the wrong noble’s door during an investigation. Now he wants yours truly,” Hawke nicked a shrimp from the dwarf’s plate and popped it in her mouth, “to investigate it on her own - expensive - time.”

“‘Fraid I’m busy, Hawke.” Varric’s eyes were still locked on a cycle between the cards in his hand and the cards on the table. He didn’t notice the mage swipe another shrimp.

The mage raised a single, black eyebrow. “Oh yes. Very busy, I see.”

“Absolutely jam packed,” Anders added. 

“My evening is full.” Fenris played a card and somehow managed to scowl even deeper when Varric swiped the pot. 

“Ueda’s free.” The name was like an ice cube slipped down her back. All gooseflesh and discomfort against her skin. She suppressed the shift that rose in her legs to just a double tap of her foot. 

“That so, Ueda?” Those blue eyes were on her, sweeping up and down like a flag snapping in the breeze. Six could see the smile in them before it reclaimed her face. 

“It is,” she conceded. It might be better than standing around and watching Hawke’s friends lose at cards and laugh at her at least. “Though investigations are not my strong suit.”

“Too much thinking for a woman like you?” Anders. With a cutting little quirk of his lips. 

“In a way.” It was a bit like using a grenade for an execution. It’d get the job done, but there were cleaner ways to do it.

“I’ll take it. Anyone else?”

“I’ll come as well,” Isabela announced to Fenris’ squawking. “Might as well, since our new friend here likes to watch.” 

The pirate rose and sauntered out the door, hips swaying like a pendulum.

Now it was Hawke’s turn to frown. “I think I missed something, didn’t I?”

* * *

During the day Hightown shone like a beacon, grand and towering and white. At night the shine didn’t go away, just changed. It stood there, like the flame at the top of a lighthouse, silver and soft. Refracting the stars and moon off mirrors of gilded marble.

Compared to the towering shimmer of glass and steel that her cities had been, it was understated and a tad monotone. But, without the light pollution blocking the stars and moonlight, Hightown had a more natural, more open air to its glow. Less neon and more starlight. 

They processed down its streets in a diamond with Hawke at the helm and her watching the rear. Every now and again Six would spot eyes glittering in the alleyways, watching them. But they always moved on in search for softer targets. 

By the time they arrived at the DuPuis estate - near the Chantry and the palace - Three-twelve hadn’t even fully drawn her sword, and Hawke, Merrill, and Isabela were deep in conversation on what bits of magic the Blooming Rose would and would not allow. 

It was not something she chose to offer input on. 

“Ah, here we are.” A pause as the leading mage raised her hands to form a box that roamed over the mansion’s facade. “Bit plain, don’t you think?”

“Your noble is showing, Hawke. Please, put it away before one of us gets sick.”

The woman huffed and grabbed her staff, “I’m just saying that - oh, forget it. It’s not my fault you’re all paupers.”

“Do you want richer friends, Hawke?” Merrill’s voice bounced through the courtyard and then into the street before vanishing into the alleys. Hawke’s response was lost to the mansion before them. 

“After you,” Isabela held the great wooden door open with her hips, both hands full with her blades. 

Six nodded to the woman then stepped through the threshold.

The first word that came to mind was ‘dusty.’ Everything from the multicolor statues to the upended furniture was covered in a layer of dust. It turned what might have been a colorful foyer into a grey mess, and the pale moonlight killed what little colors survived. 

“Not as bad as Fenris’ place,” Hawke said to herself, taking a single step forward.

Her sole met the tile, and wisps of dust and ash burst from the floor, shrieking.

Six was in front of the mages in the blink of an eye, a talon of smoke scraping off her bracer and piercing the tile floor. Then her blades were out and slashing. A parry followed by a stab as another shade rushed her, then a swell of light and ozone as electricity coursed from behind her and through the shades before them. 

It fell into a rhythm, as fights almost always do. Three or four shades rushing her with single minded aggression while Merrill and Hawke threw lighting and earth into their ranks on an unbroken tempo. 

Every now and again one of the forms would lock up, wail, and burst into smoke, their remnants framing Isabela’s wicked smile in ash before she slipped away to slice down the back of another. 

Three waves, six each. First from the floor, then the stairs, and then the siderooms. Rolling over the floor like a black, angry fog and slamming up against the wall of magic and steel. 

Hawke got the last one, igniting it with a flourish and snap of her fingers like so much kindling. Its pyre stained the room orange for a flash, before the moonlight rushed back in like water to drown it. 

“Well. Off to a good start.”

Six and Isabela grunted their agreement, Merrill offering a “I think that is actually quite a poor start, Hawke,” before the mage flowed up the stairs. Her staff and footsteps beat a tune against the stone. 

“Could’ve been worse, Puppy. Could have been demons,” Isabela spoke easily, but Three-twelve noticed the way her eyes snapped from door to door as they walked, swords still unsheathed. 

Wait. “Weren’t those demons?” They certainly weren’t natural. 

“Kind of. There’s actually some debate on whether Shades are spirits of the lost dead or demons in their most natural form outside the Fade. The Keeper always used to say that neither was wholly true, but that either could be.” 

Isabela nodded absently to Merrill before the words clicked and the nodding stopped. “Wait what? Neither but either?”

“Aye. The Fade is a place of contradictions.”

“Of course, I get it. The Keeper was talking out of her ass then,” Isabela said. Six was inclined to agree. 

“Of course not! Keeper Marethari and Keeper -”

“Shh!” Hawke snapped around, eyes unfocused on the doors around them and head cocked. They all listened. 

“Sounds like…” Merrill frowned.

“Begging.” Six finished. “It sounds like begging."

The four of them turned to sprint towards the sound as one.  
  


It was a long hallway, but their legs ate it up in seconds. A door, wooden and half open, stood at the end. Her boot reached it first, all the momentum from her sprint and the weight behind her leg throwing the door easily on its hinges to crack against the wall like a gunshot.

A man, on the cusp between his 30s and 40s, stood over a sobbing woman in wrinkled finery. White, meticulous, and expensive metal glimmered over his shoulder at the tip of a staff. 

“You…” he blinked at them once, shock making his eyes go wide. “You’re not him.”

The four of them filled the room in a semicircle, weapons drawn. Behind the pair a courtyard overflowed with wild, untended plants. 

“Shit, I-I know what this looks like, but I didn’t hurt her!” 

“She was just begging for the fun of it then?” It was a joke, but Hawke’s voice was sharp and laced with anger.

“Just-just listen to me. There’s a killer out there, and I think he’s playing us both. Just let me explain.”

For a long moment the only sound was the soft sobs of the older woman and the wind whispering through the empty halls. Then Hawke’s stance relaxed a little, her back straightening and her center of balance shifting up. “This I have to hear.”

The man sagged with relief before determination replaced it. “Several years ago my sister was murdered. The bastard’s now in Kirkwall, killing again. Alessa here,” he gestured to the kneeling woman while he paced, “was next. It always starts the same way, you see. An older widow, a bouquet of white lilies. Anonymous letters. He lures them out and then he kills them himself.”

A pause as DuPuis turned to face the overgrown courtyard. “I took Alessa so that he would have to come to me. Tonight, I expected to face my sister’s killer,” his face twisted and his tone turned sour as he turned to face them, “instead I face you.”

“He’s lying! He hurt me!”

DuPuis huffed and knelt, one hand moving to yank the woman’s arm up to her face. A ragged line ripped through the cloth down her wrist, stained red. “I told you, I needed your blood to perform a tracking spell on the man following you. It was for your own protection!"

Alessa quavered, ripped her hand from his grip and fell back. She was shaking like a leaf.

“Careful there, don’t be too gentle,” Isabela remarked dryly. 

“You’re a blood mage then,” Hawke’s back was to Six, but she could hear the woman’s voice go monotone and careful. 

“That doesn’t mean he’s evil, Hawke,” Merrill argued. She raised a single eyebrow at the elf.

“Blood magic is a tool, an… unfortunate one.” DuPuis frowned and shifted from foot to foot, “I’m not proud of what I’ve done, but I had to. He took my sister from me.”

Six was - admittedly - not too familiar with blood magic beyond what she’d heard from Hawke’s friends and the occasional Templar. None of it sounded good. She moved forward, hands still on her blades, until she was shoulder to shoulder with Hawke, her eyes shifting between his center of gravity and his hands. “You believe him?” That was what it came down to, after all. 

“Oh please,” she could hear Isabela rolling her eyes, “a blood mage with a captured, weeping woman? What more do we need to know?”

“I believe him,” Merrill added stubbornly. 

“You believe every urchin on the street, Puppy, that’s hardly helpful.”

“That doesn’t mean that he’s lying, and being a blood mage doesn’t mean he’s the man we’re looking for.”

“It doesn’t mean he’s safe to let roam either.”

“So what? We kill him for using the tools at his disposal?”

Isabela shrugged, “or we could turn him into the Templars. Guaranteed a blood mage off the streets and if the murders stop then we know we got the right man.”

“And if they don’t we’ll have put an innocent man in the hands of the Templars. He’ll be made Tranquil!”

“I would prefer that _not_ happen,” DuPuis said. “We can help each other find the killer, but if you jail me you’ll be playing into his hands. And, well, I will not go quietly.”

The wind picked up in the courtyard, letting the trees whisper and talk amongst themselves. Her thumb turned slow, careless circles on the pommel of her sword. “Your decision, Hawke.”

“No opinion, Ueda?” Isabela asked.

A minute shrug of her shoulders, “like I said, I’m not suited for investigations. Kill him or let him go, either will do.”

From the corner of her eye, she saw Hawke’s brows lower even further. “How long have you been hunting this man?”

“Years now, since the day he killed my sister.”

“You know his habits and tendencies?”

A slow nod, “I do.”

“Then I’ll let you go,” his shoulders sagged before her eyes, the tension fleeing his body. “On the condition that you _help us_ find him.”

“Done,” DuPuis said. “I would have done so anyway.”  
  


“Never hurts to be sure, does it? Now go on,” Hawke threw her head at the door behind them, ''get out before Isabela decides she doesn’t want to listen to me.”

DuPuis nodded one last time, then moved to jog down the hallway. His footsteps beat a low, easy rhythm through the manor that faded slowly. 

“Hope that was the right call,” Isabela sheathed her knives, and Six was almost sure the look on her face was disappointment.

Hawke’s blue eyes were still gazing down the hallway, as if she might be able to see through the walls and track the blood mage’s movement if she tried hard enough. “Me too,” the mage sighed. “Me too.”

* * *

  
  


The walk from the Gallows to the Chantry had to be at least ten klicks. Fifteen if you counted all the stairs and looping roads that wound back on each other like a pile of drunken snakes. Hawke complained nonstop the whole way to the Hanged Man, but quieted a little after Merrill and Isabela split off and it was just the two of them. 

Now they were halfway up the stairs to Hightown, Hawke was humming a soft tune and taking care to point out each and every hawker’s stall that was worthwhile. 

“- that one sells wonderful hackjaw stew come Winter, oh! And that one there? She makes the best little Ferelden figurines. Isabela got me a little mabari sculpture from there one time after -” a cough, and the mage suddenly looked very interested in the wall. “Well. Actually it was more _during_ and it had a very specific, ah, _function_ _,_ but still! It was sweet.”

Six side-eyed the woman. She was only half listening, or had been. “A specific function? For a dog statue?”

“Well,” Hawke’s eyes flicked back to her only long enough for Six to spy a dusting of red on her cheeks, “traditional mabari statuettes are elongated and almost rounded and -” this time narrowed blue eyes met hers. “Did you call it a _dog_ _?”_

Six watched the stalls turn fancier and fancier as they crept toward Hightown. The walls and stairs beginning to look almost clean. “Yes. Isn’t that what they are?”

Hawke huffed, “no. Mabari are more than just dogs, they’re - they’re -”

“Special dogs?”

“Yes! Special dogs! Very smart dogs,” another huff as Hawke crossed her arms to glare at the entrance to Hightown. “Just a _dog_ ,” she muttered. 

Three-twelve half turned to watch the woman sulk, ignoring the cries of vendors and the bustle of morning activity that typically wrapped around her brain like a glove. Hawke’s lips were drawn in a small pout, and her wild black hair was shoved back away from her face. Three tufts of hair however, cut across her forehead to end in delicate points just above her eyes.

When she pouted, Six noticed, the scar on her lip and the scar on her cheek almost touched. “You’re sulking,” she observed.

“Wha- I am not! I’m just…”

“Moping?”

Hawke’s eyes narrowed again, the floor beneath them turning to polished marble. “That’s a synonym.”

“Yes,” Six smiled slightly, surprised at herself. “It is.” It was fun, she decided, to annoy Hawke for once, rather than the other way around. 

Hawke studied her face for a long moment as they wended their way through the Hightown market before a grin snatched her features. “I knew it.”

“Knew what?”

“You enjoy my company.”

Six’s smile drowned in pursed lips. “You give yourself too much credit.”

“That’s not a no,” Hawke sing-songed. The mage’s shoulder hit hers and soundly bounced off. “Just admit it, from the moment you saw me you wanted to be my friend - who doesn’t? ‘There’s a woman,’ you thought, ‘who can salvage my days from the dreary wastes of taking everything too seriously! Who can rescue my sense of humor from the burning home of my personality! Who can -’”

“You are annoying.”

Hawke laughed, and the sound bounced off the sparkling walls of white and tinkled like bells. “You know you like me, Ueda. I don’t blame you, everybody does.”

Hawke stopped outside her manor and Ueda stopped with her. “Even the ones who try to kill you?”

“Us,” she corrected, “and yes, even those. Especially those. They like me so much they get jealous and decide to kill me.”

Six hummed and turned around to make her way toward the Chantry. 

“Not even a goodbye?!” Hawke’s voice rang through the plaza with what she thought was mock affront. It was a safe bet with the mage. 

She didn’t pause, just kept walking to the great cathedral until she was at its doorstep. She shouldered the door open gently and realized that her lips were still quirked up.

* * *

They’re not there when she opens the door to their room, so she decides to lean against the wall and wait. It’s harder than she expects. The silence of the orphanage is in direct contrast to every moment she’s had in the month or she’s been at Kirkwall. Always sound, always _something_ ; it had grown into a pleasant static. 

Now, with the silence pressing in like saltwater, her senses were on high alert. Straining to find the something that had stopped the normal sounds and gave away the ambush. On top of that anxiety, the silence slid her thoughts back to ONI bases and Colonel Bak. Even further towards home. 

It was disconcerting. Unsettling.

By the time footsteps began to trickle down the hall and toward her ears her knife had been sharpened to a perfect edge, so clear she could see her face in it. A quick flick of her wrist and it was sheathed, and a second later a parade of children marched past with an elderly Sister at the rear. The shifting of her wrinkled eyes reminded Six of a laser designator. 

The children were silent, but their eyes didn’t leave her body. They flicked from face to weapons to hands like indecisive songbirds trying to find the perfect branch. 

Ellena and Tamar were at the rear with the matron, and, though they opened and closed the door to their room with perfect quiet, they were smiling broadly. 

  
The last door closed with a heavy crack that had the matron glaring at the source, and then she was striding forward toward Six with the perfect posture of a drill instructor. Six pushed off the wall and straightened subconsciously. 

“What are you doing here?” Her voice, like her posture, was perfectly composed and entirely confident. Not a single syllable out of place. 

“I’m here to see Ellena and Tamar Olonala.”

Somehow, despite probably being a quarter of her weight and having to look almost straight up to meet her eyes, the matron still managed to look down her nose at her when she asked “and what would a mercenary want with those girls?”

“I promised I would visit.” 

A single grey eyebrow raised to vanish into her cap. “Did you now?”

“Yes ma’am. As long as I stayed in Kirkwall.”

A beat passed as the woman studied her face, eyes as blank as the walls around them picking apart each line before moving to her chest and down to the swords at her side. It felt like inspection back on Onyx. 

Finally, she hummed and gave a single, sharp nod. “Very well. You already know their room. You have an hour, after that is it time for afternoon prayer.

Six inclined her head, but the woman was already striding away, back straight and footsteps cracking down the hall. She turned, took a breath, and opened the door.

  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey folks! Hope 2021 is treating you well so far! It’s been alright for me, though busy as all fucking hell. The hiatus was a symptom of that and my new job. Busy busy busy busy. Still! I’m really satisfied with this chapter over all; proud of the dialogue especially and a few bits of my prose. 
> 
> Anyway, enough about all that. I’m going to be switching to bi-weekly updates I think. Or at least trying it out. Like I said, I’ve been super busy so far and this gives me a little more of a breather in between publishing deadlines to polish off the chapters and make sure y’all get something actually worthwhile. With that being the case the next chapter will be coming Wednesday, February 17th! Probably sometime in the evening. 
> 
> That’s all! As usual please tell me what you think and if you spot any errors! Stay safe and I’ll see y’all soon!


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